Currently in the Philippines, two reproductive health bills are being passed in the congress. One is by Hon. Edcel Lagman, House Bill No. 4244, An Act for Providing a Comprehensive Policy on Responsible Parenthood, Reproductive Health, and Population and Development, and for Other Purposes. The other is by the infamous Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, which is Senate Bill No. 2378, An Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health and Population and Development. These two bills have the same goal and agenda but can be considered completely different from each other. In my opinion, these are bills that are worth passing into law.
Since I have previously discussed one of the proponents and avid supporter of RH Bill, let me talk about yet another proponent and supporter of another RH Bill, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago. She is probably one of the most famous politicians in the history of the Philippines because of her wit, her conviction, and above all, her take no prisoner attitude in and out of the senate halls. Because of this, she is considered to be the greatest Philippine female senator of her time. With that, I would like to give a little background about her and how she ended up supporting and creating an RH Bill.
Miriam was born in 1945 in Iloilo City to Benjamin, a district trial judge, and Dimpna, who was a dean in college. Benjamin and Dimpna had 7 children together, with Miriam being the eldest. Because of her success as a politician, she helped most of her siblings go through college. Miriam graduated valedictorian both in grade school and high school. She received numerous awards in high school especially with her academics and extra-curricular activities. At a young age, she already proved to be one day imminent in her field. She then studied college at the University of the Philippines Diliman, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws, where she was cum laude. In all her years in UPD, she received a number of awards no female has ever done in that university. Her life after this was so festooned that it will not fit in a single blog entry. For the meantime, I will skip that and jump right into her creation of the RH Bill.
On August 11, 2010, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago filed a Reproductive Health Act, also known as 15th Congress-Senate Bill No. 2378. As previously mentioned, it is An Act Providing for a National Policy on Reproductive Health and Population on Development. For it to be differentiated from the RH Bill, its shorter title is The Reproductive Health Act. This act also differs from the RH Bill for it focuses more on how to control the country’s population and how that will help in our country’s development since it is a known fact that overpopulation is one of the reasons why the Philippines is not fully developing. If given a chance in my future blog entries, I would like to take time to discuss the major similarities and differences of the RH Bill and the RH Act.
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