Philippines to implement family planning law ...

... in blow to church

The announcement marked a victory over the influential Catholic church

Published: 15:59 November 16, 2017

AFP

 

MANILA A long-awaited Philippine family planning law to provide free hormonal contraceptives is finally going ahead, health officials said Thursday, ending a two-year impasse in which the Supreme Court demanded proof that they did not cause abortions.

The announcement marked a victory over the influential Catholic church which counts most of the Philippine population as followers and opposes all forms of artificial contraception.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque said 51 types of contraceptive pills, coils and injectables could now be distributed to the public after the Food and Drug Administration certified they did not cause abortions, defeating a petition filed by a Catholic group.

“It is now all systems go for us in the Department of Health to implement the (Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health) law,” Duque told reporters.

For years, the Church has waged a bruising battle against government efforts to promote birth control despite the country’s widespread poverty and ballooning population.

The reproductive health law granting access to contraceptives was passed in 2012 despite strong Church opposition. However abortion remains illegal.

A religious group filed a case with the Supreme Court charging that many of the government-issued contraceptives were abortifacients and therefore banned.

This prompted the court to issue in 2015 a restraining order on the 51 contraceptives pending a finding by the FDA.

Government stocks of the contraceptives, acquired before this court order, are now being delivered to health offices and development groups to ensure they can be distributed before they expire, Duque said.

President Rodrigo Duterte, a fierce critic of the Catholic church who was elected last year, has promised to deliver the free contraceptives to women as part of his reproductive health push.

Despite Church lobbying to cut funding for contraceptives, Duque said the government had budgeted 4.2 billion pesos ($82 million) for implementation of the law this year.

The head of the government’s Population Commission, Juan Antonio Perez, said the two years that the court order was in place had likely resulted in 500,000 unplanned pregnancies.

Perez said that the Philippines had 20 million women of reproductive age, six million of whom were already using contraceptives.

Perez added a million more were expected to start using contraceptives each year now that the ban had been lifted.

Philippine Church Accusing Chris Brown Faces its own Legal Troubles over Alleged Abductions

In this photo taken July 23, 2015, the central temple of the Iglesia Ni Cristo or Church of Christ is seen in suburban Quezon city northeast of Manila, Philippines. A politically influential and secretive Christian church that's involved in a legal dispute with American R&B singer Chris Brown has been caught in a rising tide of its own legal troubles. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) 

By OLIVER TEVES, Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A politically influential and secretive Christian church involved in a legal dispute with American R&B singer Chris Brown has been caught in a rising tide of its own troubles, including allegations of abductions and misuse of funds.

The Philippine government on Friday opened an investigation into allegations that the advisory Council of Iglesia ni Cristo, or Church of Christ, was responsible for abducting ministers critical of church leaders and financial abuse. The announcement by the Justice Department caps months of swirling rumors about corruption and internal feuds in the church, which has been controlled by the founder's family for two generations.

Brown gave a concert in Manila this week but was delayed from leaving because of a fraud complaint filed by a corporation run by the church. It claims it had paid Brown and a promoter $1 million in advance for a New Year's Eve concert at the 55,000-seat Philippine Arena, which he canceled without paying the money back. Brown was allowed to leave Manila late Friday after obtaining clearance.

The church's troubles are apparently unrelated to its tiff with Brown, but could be far more damaging to its reputation by exposing the depth of internal squabbles in the 101-year-old movement. It is also likely to unmask the strong grip it has on its 2.3 million members.

The feud within the close-knit church became public this week when the mother and a brother of the group's head, Eduardo Manalo, were expelled after they sought help from other members in a YouTube message, saying they were in danger and that several ministers had gone missing.

The brother, Felix Nathaniel Manalo, spoke out on Thursday against what he said were various anomalies in the church's operations, saying funds "are being used up in all sorts of projects which we don't even need."

One of the projects, he said, was the Philippine Arena, claimed to be the world's biggest indoor stadium where Brown was to have performed last New Year's Eve and where the 100th anniversary of the movement was celebrated last year.

"We have been threatened by the Council ... because they say we are opposing the leader," he said. "We love our brother, but the problem is those around him."

Another mysterious expense by the church, which was not mentioned by Felix Nathaniel, was its purchase of the U.S. ghost town of Scenic, South Dakota, for less than $800,000, the same year that construction of the arena began. The church has not disclosed its plan for the abandoned town.

Isaias Samson, a minister and former editor-in-chief of the Iglesia newspaper, told reporters that he, his wife and son were held under "house arrest" by armed guards allegedly on orders of the church Council for a week before they escaped early Thursday.

"It is very difficult to talk about things that we know will damage the Iglesia because of the actions of some people," he said, adding that about 10 ministers have been abducted.

With the controversy building up, the Justice Department announced it has opened an investigation.

The government cannot intervene in Iglesia's squabbles but abductions are crimes that the National Bureau of Investigation will probe, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima told reporters.

The church believes that Jesus is the son of God, but it does not believe in the Holy Trinity as do Roman Catholics — the predominant religion in the Southeast Asian nation. Iglesia commands political influence because its members vote as a bloc in national elections, making them highly sought after by politicians, especially presidential aspirants.

The movement's founder, Felix Manalo, broke away from the Catholic Church and is regarded by his followers as a prophet. He died in 1963, and was succeeded by his son, Erano Manalo, until his death in 2009, when another Manalo son took over as "executive minister."

Philippine Church "Right" despite Pope Francis Comments

 

Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma: Be involved. Photo from http://www.cbcponline.net/

Philippine Catholic leaders are standing firm against contraception, abortion and homosexual marriage despite Pope Francis’ comments urging a change of tone on those issues, the national Church said Tuesday. 

 

About 80 percent of the Philippines’ 100 million population are Catholics, making the country the bastion of the faith in Asia, and Church leaders insisted that its dogma would remain in place.

“He is not saying that what the Church deemed before as wrong is now right. He is merely telling us to be more compassionate,” Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines president Jose Palma said in reaction to the recent papal statement.
“He won’t be saying contraceptives, and even abortion, are now okay. No! Do not expect that to happen,” Archbishop Palma said in comments made Monday.
In an interview published last week, the Argentine pontiff urged a break with the Church’s harsh “obsession” with divorce, gays, contraception and abortion.
Philippine Church leaders have led a decade-long campaign against a birth control law that required the state to hand out free condoms and birth control pills, and provide post-abortion medical care.

The Supreme Court suspended the law in March so that judges could hear formal petitions from a range of Church-backed groups arguing that it was unconstitutional.
Archbishop Socrates Villegas, the vice president of the bishops’ group, said: “He (the pope) did not rebuff the strong opposition to contraception, abortion or homosexual marriage. He just set it on proper grounding.”

The transcripts of Palma’s and Villegas’ comments were made available by the bishops’ organisation to AFP on Tuesday.

Edcel Lagman, a former legislator who wrote the birth control law, told AFP the pope’s comments had put the Filipino Church leaders on the defensive, saying they belonged to its “ultra-conservative wing”.

“I think they will have to reconcile their doctrines and make themselves attuned to the liberal thinking of the new pope. There is no way to go but to follow the pope,” he said.

Lagman said the Filipino Church’s conservative activism was rooted in its key role converting locals to Christianity as part of the Asian islands’ 17th-century colonisation by Spain.

“The Church feels it should meddle in the affairs of the State,” he added.

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