Barely a few days into the new year and the Pro RH camp has fired the first shot into this battle for lives. This time it came in the form of a simple PR from the Population Commission, which said that we will hit 100 million this year. Once again, mainstream and social media are abuzz with people clamoring that we need the RH law, which is now in Supreme Court Limbo following the SC's status quo ante order.
This is by no means an accident or a coincidence. The RH machinery makes sure that from time to time the media will report something about the RH law. Haven't you noticed? Last time around, it was the rising incidence of HIV cases. This time it's the population 'ballooning' to a hundred million. Next time I bet it will be about the rise in unwanted pregnancies. This well-oiled, and well-funded RH machinery will make sure that society will be saturated with news proclaiming the RH Gospel.
For the longest time the pro-life side has been touted by the anti-life side as religious fanatics whose faith rules over the intellect. In short: they think we're the stupid ones. Next time they remind you that you're stupid because you take the side of life, ask them to take time to answer these simple questions.
1. Exactly how many Filipinos does it take to say that we are really overpopulated? No one has been able to give me an exact number yet. Can you?
2. Would God create you if He knew there would not be enough food and resources to keep you alive? There's plenty for everyone's need, but not for everyone's greed. The poor remain poor and the rich remain rich because of greed. Lowering the population does nothing to address this problem of greed.
by Jess Abrera
3. Why are we trying to lower our population when the rest of the world is desperate to raise theirs? A case of gaya-gaya, puto-maya? Countries like Japan, China, Singapore, France, Italy, and Russia are desperate to jack up their birth rates. Why are we imitating their folly? The demographic and economic implications are the same. If they're losing workforce because of too few babies born and too many old people around, it will happen to us too, if we put the breaks on our population.
4. If you're against PDAF, why aren't you against RH? So you went to Luneta and protested the unscrupulous spending of billions of taxpayer's money in things that did nothing to help the poor and advance us into progress. Tell me again how funding RH will give the poor access to basic things such as food, shelter, education, job opportunities, and skills training?
by Jess Abrera
5. Can you look at this, say out loud "we need 13.9 billion pesos to implement the RH law", and be at peace with yourself?
That is a picture of the bunkhouses they're building as temporary shelters for Yolanda victims in Tacloban. Architect Jun Palafox said in an interview with Inquirer Radio:
“I can confirm they (bunkhouses) were substandard and undersized,”
International standards, he said, require bunkhouses to be at least 20 square meters and should have two bedrooms.
“Daughters should not be sleeping with their fathers or brothers, it’s a basic human requirement,” he explained.
“What I saw there was so inhumane.”
Palafox, who has worked with 38 other countries in rebuilding disaster-stricken areas, compared the bunkhouses that they built in Sri Lanka and Malaysia to the ones being built in Leyte.
“I’m reminded of the saying, `We build monuments for the dead but we can’t even provide decent housing for the living’,’’ he said by phone when interviewed by the Inquirer.
He added that the bunkhouses in Leyte have violated various laws in terms of building construction, saying that the spaces for the families are cramped and the materials used were fire hazards.
“Various international organizations confirmed that they (bunkhouses) are cramped and are fire hazards; there is no privacy; it violates the building code… I would not put my family there,” Palafox said. “How can you put a family of five into a six to nine square-meter room while the materials used were one-fourth plywood.”
Palafox also said that the roofing, which were made with “dos aguas” galvanized iron sheets (two slopes) were the same materials that were blown away during the onslaught of “Yolanda.”
They used the same materials that were blown away in the storm, and they just repeated what was there in the first place,” Palafox said. “You don’t have to be an engineer or an architect to see it, it is a no brainer, maybe a first year Architecture student can tell you this is substandard,” he said.
This is how the government treats us. This is how the government treats the poor. No wonder the President and his cohorts have no shame in passing the RH law. Their idea of eradicating poverty is making poor people have less children, so they don't have to do the difficult work of finding real, long-term solutions to poverty and corruption. Pro RH friends, wake up!
This is yet another reply to the article written by Ana Santos in Rappler - Babies Are Not Blessings. A good friend who is a renowned Catholic apologist has already written his reply to the article here, but let me add my musings about it as well.
My mother, like all mothers, risked her life in delivering me as a baby, but unlike most mothers, she had to battle hypertension during delivery as well. The doctor predicted this would happen, and months before I was born he 'suggested' to my mother that they 'terminate' the pregnancy so she wouldn't have to go through such a life-risking procedure of delivering me. When I was about to be born, her blood pressure shot up to 180/120, but by God's Grace I was delivered into this world just fine.
To this day, she beams with pride and joy whenever she tells her friends that story when she was able to deliver me and risk her life doing so.
I agree that no woman has to die when she gives birth to her child. What I am against is this negative view about children and babies.
How can babies not be blessings?
We Catholics believe that every child is a blessing, no matter the circumstance that led to his existence. We believe that life is a GIFT from God, regardless whether we value it or not. We believe that a human person has inherent dignity, from the moment of his conception until his last breath, and that this dignity and this life should be upheld, respected, and protected, even by our very lives. These are the basic tenets of the pro-life mindset; this is why we as pro-lifers do not buy that very dangerous term: "each child should be wanted."
Ana Santos writes:
If babies are truly the blessings that we believe they are, each and every pregnancy should be wanted and properly planned for.
Our mission is to ensure that every child is a wanted child and to protect reproductive health by providing comprehensive, medically-accurate sex education and quality health care, while advocating for the reproductive rights of women, men and families.
This is the not-so-amusing thing about some Pro-RH peeps: they deny to highest heavens that RH is about abortion, but they use the same language that pro-abortion people use! Could it be...?
It is true that pregnancy, and in the larger scheme of things, being a parent, ideally should be planned. All babies, however, regardless whether they were planned or not, regardless whether they are wanted by their parents or not, should be treated as blessings. They are like God's promise to this world that, whatever happened prior to his birth, with all the good and the bad things happening in this world, life goes on!
Reality Check: Everything Costs Money, Not Just Babies
One way for Ms. Santos to drive home her point was to use the reality of finances. She writes, quoting Dr. Emma Llanto of UP-PGH:
Llanto’s list includes cost of vaccination and visits to the pediatrician (P30,000 in the first year) and modest cost of living at P25,000 – P30,000 per month.
“And then they start going to school,” says Llanto who takes her cue from the members of the audience and pegs the cost of an exclusive private school at around P100,000 per year.
Of course, having a baby costs money. Having a pet costs money. Many of our hobbies cost money. Many of our passions in life will, at one point, cost money. We are not talking about mouths to feed here, Ms. Santos. We are talking about the future generation. That mouth to feed today will be two hands and a brain tomorrow, once empowered by education.
Ironically, last week I have had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Manjoe Mendoza, father to 9 children. These days, a man like him would be derided and ridiculed for having a large family. When I sat down to interview him, however, his views on his big family astounded me. Here is a short excerpt of that interview:
Me: What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a big family?
Manjoe: It's true that many hands make light work. Presently, we don't have a helper
at home. The kids including the small ones pitch in doing the dishes and
cleaning the dining area even during school days. No one is exempted unless it
is exam week.
There is nothing compared to the dynamics of interacting with real flesh and
blood. (You may have hundreds of friends in Facebook but once you shut down
your computer, you are left by your lonesome.) The moral and emotional support
/ encouragement that they give to each other are priceless!
Boys' clothes and shoes get handed down and get maximum mileage. The girls,
since they are more or less the same size, share wardrobe.
If there is a difficult subject in school, chances are, there is a subject
matter expert the younger ones can consult. The older kids volunteer to tutor
the younger ones. With so many hands available, school projects are a breeze!
There is little chance that kids will grow up spoiled. They are experts at
division. When given a tray of chocolates, the young ones automatically divide
it by nine. There is a heightened sense of fairness and justice instilled in
them that we cannot claim to have taught them. Only the college kids have their
own laptops, the rest share one desktop PC and learn patience by queuing.
They learn to put others first. I never noticed it but Lenette (his wife) pointed out
that frequently, there is one last piece of drumstick or hotdog or lumpiang
shanghai left on the serving plate. They do not dump food on their plates. There are also disadvantages, the first one you might have guessed right. Education is expensive. We have given up a lot of things in
order to cope with the cost of education. These include children's parties,
vacations and weekends for recreation. Our children know why we have to make
sacrifices. They appreciate the value of money. We only go to the mall if there
is a specific purchase to make; we don't window-shop because it breeds a
consumerist mentality. Tough situations call for making sacrifices -- these are
golden opportunities to teach temperance and moderation, being a wise consumer
and not falling prey to advertising hype. And no, the kids do not feel
deprived.
We have deferred moving to a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood. We live in a
3 bedroom bungalow, that means there is no choice but to get along with other
people. Boys stay in one room, girls share a bedroom and bathroom. Even
managing with just two toilets at home is not viewed as an inconvenience but a
chance for them to: practice time-management; be considerate of other people,
not to always put one's self ahead. We've never bought a new car since 1997; we
drive second-hand cars. It's more practical and it teaches the value of
detachment. We don't acquire things as an end in themselves nor do we measure
people by their possessions.
Photo courtesy of Sky Ortigas
I have been invited to countless children's parties, mostly by my friends who are still beaming with their new status as parents. They tell me all about the joys as well as the struggles of parenthood. I have seen their metamorphosis too. We spent so many nights drinking and partying back in the day Now they are proud parents to their little bundle of joy, and I have seen such a profound transformation in them. Perhaps they realize that their children are both blessings and opportunities for them to improve their lives.
I dare Ms. Santos to say it to their faces - that their babies are not blessings.
I am not perfect. I made so many mistakes in my life, and lived through so many embarrassing, shameful, and painful moments. But I choose to believe that I, like everyone else, was born to be a blessing to my family and the rest of the world.
One of the many movies that made me cry was Mr. Holland's Opus, starring Richard Dreyfus. Mr. Holland wanted to become a famous composer of music, but wound up as a music teacher in the local school instead. In this scene, after he was laid off by the principal due to economic reasons, he was given one final goodbye by his students and former students, spanning more than 30 years of his career. Watch this very touching scene.
The governor of their place, who was then Mr. Holland's student, gave a very inspiring speech:
Gertrude Lang: Mr. Holland had a profound influence on my life and on a lot of lives I know. But I have a feeling that he considers a great part of his own life misspent. Rumor had it he was always working on this symphony of his. And this was going to make him famous, rich, probably both. But Mr. Holland isn't rich and he isn't famous, at least not outside of our little town. So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure.
But he would be wrong, because I think that he's achieved a success far beyond riches and fame. Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony Mr. Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of your opus. We are the music of your life.
We enrich this world and the lives of those whom we love by our existence. The gifts you have received, give as gifts! And so, as Sr. Pilar Verzosa, the founder of Pro-Life Philippines would often say: I AM GLAD YOU WERE BORN!
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