Prominent Supporters of the RH Bill: Jim Paredes (June 16, 2011)

To continue my streak of writing about prominent supporters of the Reproductive Health Bill, my next blog entry would be about another supporter that I was surprised to hear who is pro RH Bill. This person is also not very vocal about his support, but his support will definitely make an impact. Like what I said in my previous blog entry, I am happy that there are supporters of the RH Bill coming from different backgrounds. In my previous blog entries, I have discussed a supporter coming from the entertainment industry, Broadway to be exact, and another coming from the news and public affairs industry. The next supporter I’ll be discussing is someone coming again from the entertainment industry, but this time in music. His name is Jim Paredes.

Born on August 31, 1951, Jaime Ramon “Jim” Paredes is one of the extraordinary artists in the Philippines. He’s a musician, producer, and writer, among others. You name it, he is it. He is probably most famous for being part of one of the greatest musical group in the country, the Apo Hiking Society. A trio composed of Jim Paredes, Danny Javier, and Boboy Garovillo. As a writer, Jim Paredes’ most famous solo work was the 1986 song Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo. The song was recorded by a total of 15 Filipino artists and became the anthem of the 1986 People Power Revolution.

Jim Paredes may not be very vocal about his support of the RH Bill, but he always take about the issue on his Twitter page. In one of his tweets, the one that struck me the most, he said, “Bishops called pro-RH names such as ‘terrorists’. But it is bishops who are giving wrong misleading info on RH. Are they ‘errorists’?” This particular tweet of his struck me the most for it was very similar to what I think the Catholic Church is doing to the RH Bill. They call the supporters of the RH Bill “terrorists” because we attack the morals and principles the Catholic Church have taught us all these years. But can’t they also be called “terrorists” for attacking what we believe in? Also, I agree with what Jim Paredes said about how the bishops are being “errorists”. They try to manipulate what the RH Bill really is all about by omitting some important facts that will make the RH Bill look bad to people.

This is my main concern with the Catholic Church’s involvement of the RH Bill. They try so hard for the RH Bill to not be passed into a law that they interpret the contents of the RH Bill in a really wrong way so that it will look like it is a bill that is anti-life when in fact it is not. The see the RH Bill in a negative way already without actually reading it first intently and understanding it the way it should really be understood. This is what I think provoked Jim Paredes to call them “errorists”.