About the author- litigation lawyer in telecoms, taxation, criminal, labor, appellate, family law and corporate; a radio broadcaster, speaker, author a husband, a father, advocate for consumers, for justice www.angkapatiran.org and a sinner who wants to
be a saint. hilman1108@yahoo.com
22 September 2009
House of Representatives
Constitution Hills, Quezon City, Philippines 1126
To: The Speaker of the House Hon. Prospero Nograles and all concerned Lower House Committees especially the Committee on Population and Family Relations,
We, the Kapatiran Party-Youth, vehemently requests to be exempted from the representation of the youth-oriented party-list group KABATAAN. This is in lieu of our obvious disparity regarding our stand against the party-list’s position in the currently pending House Bill No. 5043 or better known as the Reproductive Health and Population Development Bill of 2008. Apparently, KABATAAN’s representative Raymond Palatino roots for the passage of the bill’s present content, which we in our group deem detrimental to the Filipino youth once passed and promulgated.
Our group believes in the youth bringing hope and living the true values of life, which includes being pro-life. We find it very disappointing and unfortunate for Palatino and the KABATAAN party-list for patronizing the promulgations of the bill, which in effect agrees to the use of artificial birth control methods, causing harm in every aspect of the person using such. How can young people be born and brought to maturation if the youth party-list like KABATAAN prevents young people to be born in our society that is predicted to reach the zero population growth in two decades? In fact, the CIA factbook writes our birth rate at 1.9 which is below the replacement rate of 2.1.
To support these arguments further, only four (4) out of every ten married couples have more than three (3) children nowadays. Too many are the countries who want children and unfortunately, they are aging beyond redemption like Japan, Singapore, Germany, and most of Europe. Sadly, we are losing our young productive workers to other countries at the rate of three (3) thousand a day. Look at America importing our young immigrants at the rate of 45,000 a year, and Australia having a migration policy to replace its aborted children. We should not play into the hands of those who do not want a shared wealth opportunity rather than blame poverty on the number of children.
On the other hand, the Kapatiran Party-Youth believes in the efficiency of natural family planning methods. The groups also believe that the government should rechannel its efforts to skills development, preserving good family values, and nourishing the quality of life in the country. Several countries envy our high resources of precious raw materials and workforce. This is also another potential that the government should also pay attention to instead of wasting time and effort crafting unneeded laws that would only produce repercussions to the citizens of this country especially the youth.
Therefore, we highly object to be represented by the KABATAAN party-list if they continue to support this bill. Let it be known also that our group is just but one of the many other youth organizations who are misrepresented by the stand of the said party-list.
For Inquiries: Contact: Lea Manalang 0927-4448088, leamanalang@gmail.com
