Responsible Parenthood Sensible Approach in Poverty Alleviation

Saying responsible parenthood is a sensible approach in poverty alleviation, Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson on Tuesday threw his support behind President Benigno Aquino III in pushing the passage of the Responsible Parenthood (RP) bill.

Lacson said Mr. Aquino is on the right track in pushing population management to curb the perennial problem of poverty.

“Finding ways to curb our monstrous population growth rate, which has been a major part of our poverty problem, is one sensible approach in poverty alleviation. Advocating population management is not being anti-life. In fact, it is pro-country and pro-people,” Lacson said.

But he stressed this is no pitch for abortion, which he said is a crime and has no place in the definition of responsible parenthood.

“Any form of abortion should be condemned and punished. That much is clear,” he said.

On Sunday, Mr. Aquino told graduates of the University of the Philippines he is willing to risk excommunication from the Catholic Church to push the RP bill.

The RP bill has encountered opposition from the Catholic Church for allowing artificial contraception as part of population management. The Church favors only natural family planning.

In the 14th Congress, Lacson filed Senate Bill 43, which encourages reproductive health and population management, yet rejects abortion and considers it a grave criminal offense.

He chided some sectors for claiming such legislation – which include a systematic information campaign, support systems and incentives – is anti-life.

Lacson also maintained population management is urgent now as most poor Filipinos do not have enough food or access to basic services.

“There is not enough food on the table, many are homeless, the poor have almost zero opportunity to have access to education, health care and the most basic social services, which they can otherwise enjoy with an efficient but moral population management program,” he said.

Lacson’s Senate Bill 43 seeks to create a reproductive health and population management council to implement an integrated policy on reproductive health.

The bill contains provisions for timely, complete and accurate information and education on reproductive health, and access to safe, adequate and affordable reproductive health care services – all as a preventive measure against abortion.

It promotes a population management program that aims to encourage the limitation of the number of children to an affordable level of two children per family; discourage migration to urban centers and decongesting thickly populated areas; promote effective partnership among the national government, local government units and the private sector on population management; and conduct studies on and provide incentives for the deceleration of population growth.

Yet it continues to ban abortion, which is a crime under the Revised Penal Code.

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Speech at Turnover of Equipment from PNP Foundation Inc. to PNP Crime Laboratory

For the very first time, since 2001, I feel a sense of belonging to an institution I once served with pride, dignity and honor. For the first time in 10 years I feel the respect accorded to a former chief of the PNP. For nine long years under the previous administration I felt like a viral burden. A bacterium if you will, so hazardous to the careers of police officers that they had to avoid me like a ... plague. In many instances I myself refused even eye contact with my former officers, mindful that their careers and assignments would very well be put at risk.
The ... opportunists in the police ranks saw a gold mine indeed. They invented crafty intelligence reports from the most bizarre to the most ludicrous. Even fabricated evidence and joined the rat race, hoping to reap the reward from their commander-in-chief who hated me so much that she was willing to dangle the carrot of promotion and juicy assignments to whoever could put me behind bars or put me away for good. A good consolation prize awaited those who would at least make my life miserable.
I remember a former head of this very office who knowingly certified an erroneous handwriting specimen analysis of the once infamous fictitious character named Jose Pidal. That single act immediately landed him a police regional director assignment in a jueteng-rich region further south of Metro Manila, and a star promotion.
That’s the politics of life. Sometimes, crime pays. Well, temporarily, I suppose.
Somebody said, there are only two kinds of friends in this world. The envious and the jealous drop out on your way up. The opportunistic ones drop out on your way down. In my own personal experience I found out there is a rare third kind: those who will stand by you through thick and thin, come hell or high water.
So much for that. I am here in my capacity as chairman of the PNP Foundation Inc. to lead the turnover of some modest equipment, donations to the PNP Crime Laboratory Service. The PNP Foundation Inc. is the brainchild of some civic-minded individuals who wanted to show appreciation to the PNP after they saw and felt some positive changes in the attitude and character of our police officers, be it behind their desks or out in the streets: when kotong became a thing of the past, when police officers stopped using recovered stolen motor vehicles, when our waistlines no longer exceeded 34 inches, when corruption in the procurement of our equipage was nil, and so forth and so on. So they formed a foundation to be funded by donations from the private sector, its monies held in perpetuity with only the time interests and earnings to be disbursed to purchase equipment or donation as what we have just turned over this morning.
Out of more than P336 million in pledges in the year 2000, more than half was actually turned over to the Foundation, to be held in perpetuity. The amount has remained intact, since then, as provided for in the Foundation’s charter. To date, out of the revenues generated from the initial seed money, the Foundation has donated a total amount of over P41 million in equipment and other items solely to the PNP being its only client beneficiary. Future donations are on stream such as an auditorium and seminar rooms of the PNP Training School in the amount of P2.5 million; the rehabilitation of the PNP SAF obstacle course in Fort Santo Domingo, with a budget of P1 million, to name a few.
Modesty aside, and with the permission of the members of the board, most of whom are pioneers of this Foundation, I would like to state here and now that this was my own version of pabaon when I left the PNP in January of 2001.
Anyway, I am happy to take note of the fact that under the present leadership of Director General Raul Bacalzo and his command group, there are indeed serious and honest efforts to institutionalize reforms that we initiated over a decade ago, taking a cue from the reform-oriented administration of President Noynoy Aquino, I can only hope that the coming chiefs will carry on what Director General Bacalzo is now undertaking.
The future comes one day at a time. And the future of the PNP largely depends on its leadership. A flawed and morally weak leadership is the last thing that the police organization needs. From an outsider looking in, I can rest easy with the thought that under a decent and professional leader like Police Director General Bacalzo, the PNP which no one member loves more than the other is in good hands. Mabuhay ang PNP. Maraming salamat po.

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