Reproductive health is in the news again. This time, it is because of the deletion of budget for contraceptives from the General Appropriations Act of 2016, interestingly, by the Bicameral Conference Committee composed of representatives from the House of Representatives, and Senate, convened solely for this year’s national budget.
It is useful to note the following: the Department of Health, through the Executive Department requested for budgets for family planning commodities, including contraceptives in its proposal request submitted to Congress for approval. Moreover, both the HOR and Senate approved such request. For the GAA to be finally enacted, differing provisions from what was approved by the two Houses need to be harmonized through the bicam.
This is most interesting because the primary work of the bicam is to harmonize the bills so they become one proposal that will be then sent back to both Houses for a final ratification. By implication, since the item in question was already approved. Why delete it? Is that what is meant by harmonization?
I have participated in some bicam meetings as a technical consultant of some legislators and during meetings, lawmakers have been quite careful that they would not overstep their functions.
Wanting to know if what the bicam did was within the rules, I asked Senator Sonny Angara over Twitter. He answered that the bicam could indeed do what it did based on previous Supreme Court decisions. Therefore, the deletion was a legal move. No wonder, people are saying that we do not have a two-House Congress because there is a third and most powerful House—the Bicameral Conference Committee.
So technically, the bicam’s move was legal. However, was it moral? Removing the budget for contraceptives violates the rights of poor women who want to practice family planning through contraceptives. Why should poor women’s rights be sacrificed? Studies have established the unquestionable link between doing family planning and reduction of high-risk pregnancies, and in effect, maternal deaths.
Removing the budgets for contraceptives is tantamount to sacrificing women’s lives. This is unacceptable.
The bicam was chaired by Senator Legarda and was composed of Representatives Ungab, Almario, Cua, Nava, Andaya, Zamora, Teves, Angpin, Quimbo, Guinigundo, & Madrona for the HOR. The Senate was represented by Senators Enrile, Sotto, Recto, and Aquino besides Legarda.
Sotto was the first to issue statement that indeed they removed the DoH budget for contraceptives and again peddling the disinformation that contraceptives are abortifacient while at the same time saying that he is now pro-RH. How ridiculous! How can one be pro-RH and say that contraceptives are abortifacient?
I do not know where Sotto gets his wrong information. He should fire whoever told him that condoms and injectables are included in the Supreme Court’s TRO. It should be said only Implanon, a subdermal implant is covered by the TRO and NOT because it is abortifacient (it is not), but because of the erroneous complaint by an anti-RH group that the Food And Drug Administration did not follow the correct process when it certified the implant. Sotto should read the TRO and stop misleading the public.
The bicam chair, Senator Legarda issued a statement on why the budget was removed. She said that they studied it as well as the implications of budget removal. She went on to say that the one billion was removed and reallocated to other “equally important items.”
Legarda mentioned that as of June 2015, only 29 percent of the DoH budget was obligated. The implication being, that DoH is unable to use the money it asked for.
I have questions for Senator Legarda. If they studied the implications of removing the contraception budget, what did they find out? Did she ask the DOH about this since it is the agency that can make things clear to her? Or, did they remove the budget because they thought it is unimportant OR against their RH stance? Note that the two most rabidly anti-RH senators, Enrile and Sotto are in the Bicam. I also know that Legarda herself was lukewarm to the RH bill then.
The RH law is there. It clearly says that there should be an adequate budget from the GAA for the needs for its proper implementation. Of course our dear legislators know this. Did they think that contraceptives are unnecessary in its implementation? Oh yes, that’s what Sotto, Enrile and anti-RH believe. So, did the Bicam members violate the RH law?
The bicam removed the budgets on the basis of fund availability in June 2015. That budget is for the entire year. How can they know that it would not be used from July to December? Did the bicam also cut budgets of other agencies that showed a sizeable fund availability at that time? If they did not, why? Why zero in on contraceptives? Do these legislators think that family planning is less important than other items?
Does Senator Legarda know that purchasing FP commodities is NOT the same as going to the market and buying fish? The procurement process takes months.
It should be noted that it was only in 2015 that the DOH could start to really move on RH implementation. The structures were for implementation were still being set-up then. It is very unfair of the bicam members to think that by mid-year, the budget should have been fully obligated. Did Legarda think that the DOH was not moving fast enough?
The thing is, if only they bothered to ask, they would know that as of October of 2015, the budget for family planning commodities was already 65 percent utilized. Note the word, UTILIZED and not just obligated. Most importantly, by December, the budget was already 90 percent used! These figures I got from the DOH during the meeting of the National Implementation Team on RH.
Senator Legarda, your explanation on the removal of the budget for contraceptives is unacceptable. This is a great disservice to the poor Filipino women who want to practice family planning and use contraceptives.
Again, women’s rights and lives are in peril because the bicam committed a blunder. Or did the anti-RH members pull a fast one? The RH struggle goes on!
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