#occupy4rh

MANILA, Nov. 27, 2011– Some 500 students from in and around Alabang, Muntinlupa City flocked to the Tuloy sa Don Bosco Street Children Village in Muntinlupa recently to join the pep rally organized for young pro-life lawmakers by Youth United for the Philippines (YUP).

Tuloy sa Don Bosco was founded  in 1993 to rescue street children and give them a home, direction, and the skills they will need in the real world. The very same ideal rests on the core principle of what YUP was founded upon –  “YUP! to education, YUP! to jobs & YUP to healthcare for all and No to RH bill!” was the standard chant.

Hosted by Christine Jacob-Sandejas, Patrick Lim and basketball superstar Chris Tiu, the energy-packed event was attended by delegates from Muntinlupa National High School, Muntinlupa Science High School, Pedro E. Diaz High School, Muntinlupa Business High School, Pamantasan ng Muntinlupa, University of Asia and the Pacific, Homeschoolers Association of the Philippines, GCF South Metro Christian School, Linden Tree School Philippines, De La Salle Zobel, Elizabeth Seton School, PAREF Woodrose School, PAREF Southridge School, and students from Tuloy sa Don Bosco.

Among the solons who make up the Nine Young Legislators (9YL) who made the pro-life declaration and who were present at the pep rally were Dakila Carlo Cua (Quirino, lone district), Allan Velasco (Marinduque, lone district), Fatima Aliah Dimaporo (Lanao del Norte, 2nd district),  Karlo Alexei Nograles (Davao City, 1st district), and Irwin Tieng and Mariano Michael Velarde, Jr., both of Buhay Partylist.

Other 9YL members are Lucy Torres-Gomez (Leyte, 4th district), Rachel Marguerite del Mar (Cebu, 1st district), Gabriel Quisumbing (Cebu, 6th district).

Cua reminded the students of the experience of densely populated yet prosperous nations.

“Singapore, New York, Hong-kong… Overpopulation is not the cause of poverty and that is common sense,” the Quirino congressman said.

Dimaporo, on the other hand, emphasized the government’s duty to prioritize that which is most crucial to the youth.

“The policies of the government should support education,” the lawmaker from Mindanao pointed out.

For Tieng, the six-year comprehensive sex education program included in the RH bill — which will be carried out in all private and public schools should the measure be enacted into law — cannot be treated as just another academic subject due to its sensitive nature.

“Sexuality education must be handled with care and must be taught in the home,” he said.

More vital concerns than RH worthy of P3 billion budget In an official anti-RH statement released in major broadsheets in September, the 9YL explained that P3 billion — the proposed annual budget for the RH bill — is a huge amount of taxpayers’ money and will be more useful in addressing the poor’s lack of access to education, employment opportunities and better health care, which are the real causes of poverty.

“The proposed P3 billion appropriation for the RH bill, if put towards education, can help secure the future of young Filipinos. That amount can build 4,644 new classrooms…or it can subsidize the college education of 300,000 scholars — a chance for underprivileged student achievers to earn their diploma.”

“With precious few teachers fighting the good fight in our public schools, P3 billion can fund the salaries of 13,000 additional teachers to boost up their ranks,” the statement continued.

The legislators also said that the amount would be better off used for providing job opportunities to the poor, whose financial stability will be bolstered by gainful employment. Part of this will be the provision of better skills training, the development of farm-to-market roads, and programs such as micro-lending funds to empower small businesses.

It was fun as hell. I met people like Carlos Celdran, Leloy Claudio (who, by the way, is HOT) and Dr. Junice (from UPM-PGH) and got to do a lot of fun things. :)

I'd blog about it tomorrow, because I'm really really tired already.

As my facebook status says, "For the semi-soccer game, the scrabble with a twist, the new people I got to meet, and most of all, THE ADVOCACY... kudos to RHAN and Filipino Freethinkers! The lawmakers cannot play blind and deaf forever. Team delay would one day become team passe. :)

Thanks to Jojie for the ride going there and Juno for accompanying me halfway home. :) #OccupyforRH"

RHAN means, "Reproductive Health Alliance Network"

The commonly used name of ‘the pill’ is made up of two ‘styles’ of formulations; the progesterone-only pill (POP) and the combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP). The COCP contains an oestrogen, most frequently ethinyl oestradiol, and a progesterone, either levonorgestrel or norethisterone. Fixed formulations of the combined pill contain the same levels of oestrogen and progesterone for 21 days, followed by an optional 7 sugar tablet. Newer versions have hormonal levels which vary two or three times during the month (hence the bi- and tri-phasic names some of these products carry). Within the last few years, the combined pill has been released containing gestodene or desogestrel as the progesterone component. These products are known as third-generation progesterones. They are made as either a fixed dose formulation eg. Minulet®, or as a triphasic formulation eg. Tri-Minulet®. They are not very popular because they double the risks of a woman developing a blood clot.

'Conception' refers to the moment at which the sperm penetrates and fertilises the ovum to form a viable zygote. It does not refer to the process of implantation of the newly created human embryo, which is a separate event, occurring about 7-8 day’s after conception. A woman is pregnant because conception has occurred, not because implantation has occurred. This distinction is important.

At the precise and unique moment of conception, a woman is 'pregnant' with "a new individual ". This is an accurate and informed medical description. It is the same terminology used by Prof. John Dwyer, pre-eminent Australian AIDS expert and researcher, who has described the moment that the sperm enters the ovum as the creation of a "new and unique individual". Well known medical writer, Professor Derek Llewellyn-Jones, author of Everywoman, has also written that when the male genetic material from the sperm joins with the female genetic material in the ovum, " a new individual is formed".

To stop conception occurring, that is, to stop sperm and ovum joining, is contraception. Condoms, diaphragms, spermicides, vasectomy and tubal ligation are accurately described as methods of contraception. Obviously any drug or device used after conception has occurred cannot be termed a contraceptive.

The correct term to describe any interference with the pregnancy after conception has occurred is ‘abortifacient’. This is the precise biological description for any drug or device that acts to end a pregnancy once it has begun at conception.

You might be interested to know that many major medical dictionaries have definitions of ‘conception’, ‘pregnancy’ and ‘contraception’ that are the same as those listed above.

It is medically dishonest to break from these definitions. And yet, this is precisely what some scientists have recently started to do. They seek to define pregnancy as beginning with implantation, not fertilization. But as I mentioned ealier, implantation occurs 7-8 days after the new human person has come into existence. The pregnancy, and the new human person, are already many days old by the time implantation has occurred.

Therefore, what these scientists are trying to doing is get people to think that abortifacient drugs such as the pill are really just contraceptive drugs. Do you see the clever shift in definitions these scientists are trying to make? Redefine when a pregnancy and new human life begins, and you redefine the key characteristic of the drug – how it works!