The fight is not over yet.

Bacolod Bishop Vicente Navarra yesterday condemned the approval by Congress of the Reproductive Health Bill that he called an insult to God, and urged the faithful to continue the struggle against it through prayers and penance.

The Senate voted 13-8 and the House of Representatives 133-79 with seven abstentions Monday night for the passage of the RH Bill on third and final reading.

In Manila, officials of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines yesterday said they will support a move of anti-RH bill lawyers to question the measure before the SC.

Antipolo Bishop Gabriel Reyes, chair of the CBCP’s Commission on Family and Life, said a group of Catholic lawyers will initiate the filing of the case once the RH bill becomes a law.

In Bacolod, Navarra said, “As Bishop of my flock, I am dismayed by the unscrupulous results of said voting, and therefore, I condemn it as a blatant insult against the Omnipotent God and a grave insult to the sanctity of human life, especially of the unborn.”

Msgr. Victorino Rivas, rector of the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Shrine, said discontentment over the passage of the RH bill could lead to civil disobedience, or Catholics going out and proving that there is indeed a Catholic vote in the polls next year by voting against those who voted Yes to the RH bill.

One is not a Catholic if he or she votes against life, one should live out one’s faith, Rivas said.

Msgr. Felix Pasquin, rector of the San Sebastian Cathedral in Bacolod, said “This is Good Friday at Christmastime. We witness again the betrayal of Jesus Christ and his teachings on the sanctity of life, and family life.”

“In our culture, there is that fear and avoidance of number 13. I myself do not believe in that but, not withstanding this unbelief, the culture persists; there are no seats on airplanes, floors in high rise buildings, and rooms in hotels numbered 13. Could it be coincidence that the winning votes on second and third reading in the House were 113 and 133, and in the Senate it was 13? What I can say is God have mercy on our souls,” he added.

President Benigno Aquino might go down in history as the president who signed the death sentence for the unborn, and who officially pushed for a measure that would result to the weakening and eventual destruction of family Christian values, Pasquin said.

Navarra, in his statement titled “We must obey God rather than men”, said in behalf of the Diocese of Bacolod, that the fast tracking of the RH bill passage as it appears, is largely due to the drive to put to rest, once and for all, the issue that has divided the nation.

But the division will never pass away, for it has become clear as daylight that: “…from now on the household shall be divided. Fathers will be against theirs sons, and sons against their fathers; mothers will be against their daughters and daughters against their mothers…” he said, quoting Luke 12:49-53.

“Truth will create a divide between those who stand beneath its light and those blinded by the darkness of deceit and falsity,” he said.

The bishop called for continued prayers coupled with acts of penance, asking God “to save our country, to save our unborn from the clutches of the culture of death.”

Navarra called on the faithful to join ranks with the country’s lawmakers whom, he said, courageously become staunch witnesses and evangelizers for God and for human life, when they stood-up for the truth and for their faith in their consistent vote of “No” to the RH Bill.

He also called on the faithful to direct their prayers coupled with acts of penance in behalf of the legislators who voted “Yes”.

“May the spirit of awe and reverence for the presence of God haunt their consciences and make them realize the grave moral and social consequences of their “Yes” vote,” Navarra said.

But Andrea Si, president of the Development through Active Women Networking Foundation in Negros Occidental, said “the people have spoken through our representatives in the House and the Senate.

“Hundreds of priests and bishops threatening damnation and branding the pro-RH as corrupt, anti-life, anti-family, and anti-God have not been able to stop the historic vote,” she said.

Si said she would not be a mother of seven children if she were anti-life and anti-family.

“But if the best that I knew of natural methods of family planning resulted in seven pregnancies, I, who am well educated and have the

power to say no to my husband, what can be expected of women whose husbands come home drunk and beat them up, or threaten to take another woman, if they will not have sex?” she asked.

IUDs, pills and injectables that are now available do not prevent conception and many users do report side-effects. But what is a woman to do when she has no control over her fertility and she already has 7, 8, 9, or 10 children who are as sickly and stunted physically and mentally as she is? Is she being a responsible mother and being pro-life if she has more children that she is unable to care for? Si asked.

If “contraceptives” equals “murder” or “corruption of the soul,” why are priests known to permit the use of pills or sterilization when there is a threat to the woman’s life and health? she further asked.

In 1968, Pope Paul the VI issued the encyclical Humanae Vitae, causing widespread dissent even within the Church hierarchy and among leading theologians because of the teaching that God created the conjugal or sexual act, not just to unite husband and wife but also for procreation, she said.

Under the Humanae Vitae, “Every union of husband and wife must be open to procreation, therefore artificial methods of contraception are a violation of natural law and of God’s law,” she said.

This explains why, even if the entire RH bill were to be reduced to the issue of condom use, the Church would still be staunchly against it, she added.

“I thank God that 44 years after Humanae Vitae, our lawmakers have broken free of this controversial Catholic teaching against artificial contraception, giving Filipinos with all our different faiths and religions, the information and the methods that are needed for couples to act according to their conscience when planning their families,” Si said.*CPG

back to top