Aquino to face lay pax on birth control
By RAYMUND F. ANTONIO
November 6, 2010, 7:30pm
Manila Bulletin
MANILA, Philippines — In his next dialogue with the bishops on the issue of population control, President Aquino will not only be facing the guardians of morality.
He will also be dealing with a phalanx of lay experts on the medical, legal and economics fields to help the Church convince the President that a high population rate does not often mean high incidence of poverty.
And perhaps, with this, possibly coax him to go slow in pushing for artificial birth control methods.
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) President Nereo Odchimar said legal, medical and economics experts will be on hand when they meet the President again to explain the Church’s position on reproductive health and family planning.
“We would be enlisting help from the lay people who would be with us, representing their specific expertise. This is also a presentation that the Church is not only composed of bishops. That the majority of the church in the Philippines is composed of lay people,” Odchimar said.
“So this would be a concerted presentation of the position of the Church not only by the bishops, not only by the CBCP, but in the totality,” he added.
Odchimar said the lay experts will help enlighten the President that corruption is the major cause of poverty and not overpopulation.
Population as the root cause of poverty has been the fallacious argument trumpeted by those against the Church position.
“We’re trying to approach it for example (from the point of view of) corruption which could be one of the causes of poverty in the Philippines. Also, as the President himself has said, kung walang corrupt walang mahirap so to be pinpointing the population as the primary and the sole cause of poverty int he Philippines is I think lopsided,” Odchimar said.
The issue of curbing the runaway population rate has re-emerged shortly after Aquino assumed office. During the campaign, Aquino has hinted he favored the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill, which seeks to expand sex education in schools and access to other methods of family planning.
At one point, a bishop was wrongly reported of having threatened to excommunicate Aquino if he pushes through with an aggressive population control program. The bishop has denied issuing excommunication to the President.
