I can't get anything out of the prolife link on the bottom. They're just ranting and not providing any real supported reports. Basically "THIS IS WRONG AND INSANE AND I'M GOING TO START NAME CALLING PEOPLE NOW." Yeah....some sources would be nice instead of just claiming it's wrong. lol.

As for population control: huh. Interesting perspective on things since I'm generally for contraception/safe sex because it's a 'smart' move on the couple. Like, if you're going to have sex, have sex responsibly. I'm going to think about this perspective a little more.

I'll not support it
as a Filipino I've seen and hear all the lies.
Even those in churches, but not all of them.

@mojane: That explains that you are a filipino glad to meet another one. Thanks for correcting me about that.

Still I would stick on me being a semi-prolife. I totally agree about quality over quantity of life. Let us say you have 20 sons and 4 daughters. That is hard and let me guess where they live? In the squatters,imo. Though still I dont like the contraceptives idea. It has also a negative effect on the mother's health too in my opinion.

@elonah: like???? I'm from US over there *points* so I'm less informed on your politics lol. (please use sources also)

The website mojane directed us to isn't exactly the most "objective" nor what I would use if I want some real 'anti bill' opinions.

@heimdall: As for contraceptives: depends on what contraceptives. Like, if you use condoms correctly: err no. it's not detrimental on the woman or man. lol.
Pills: alrite, there might be some side effects, but in most cases there's not.

@KTC
in Philippines
(what's with the workshop? i think it's near to empty'

@elonah:

"hear all the lies." < what lies concerning the bill? And no conspiracy theories thank you. Reliable sources are appreciated by outsiders

and what cha mean by workshop?

i am for the bill.

from what i see in the site whose link mojanecusjanepotus provided (the last one...), they argue that other countries with high populations are not poor, and that other countries with low populations are not doing so well. but i think that in those countries, the adults know exactly how many children they can support and send to school. if, for example, you have fifteen children, and you can send them all to school and they get jobs when they're grown up, you can say that you have been responsible. but if you know you can't support that number of children, there's no problem if you have only one, two or so.

some people though are not aware of the fact, and the bill (if it works as it should) will make them aware of it.

population is not the only culprit in the problems of the economy. it is the percentage of people without jobs that affects us the most.

as for contraceptives and condoms, as long as they're used properly, they should be no problem to the health of the couple.

i will search the site for more info...

Kids, the bill doesn't even say that population is to blame for poverty. The bill says that the government doesn't have enough money support it's population and is cutting education funds. and rather than figuring out how to export more goods that will improve their economy (which would also lead to the government having more money), it aims to reduce population while spending more on helping babies get born alive and helping mothers survive childbirth (while these are both good things, neither helps resolve an overpopulation problem).

Teds: { regarding the post you made after my previous one: So your argument is "You have free will except for the choice to believe in god, because of all of the reinforcement provided within the church." right? Let's look at an example you provided: When you were a small child, you were very religious, correct? you always wanted to go to church and all that stuff.
BUT, outside of church, every influence in your life that you mentioned reinforced atheism. Now, you are an atheist.
... sounds like you got a lot of reinforcement outside of church. a lot more than within, since you spent so much more time outside. I won't debate whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but this brings me back to an earlier point: You can't say a church is any different from any other organization people choose to join.
If you're gonna blame someone for the evils of influence, blame sales people, because they're the ones who actually aim to profit from their influence attempts. Church members mainly just want you to agree with them and don't necessarily look for ways to influence you consciously.
}

@ryu: If you want to call it as a reinforcement of atheism: fine you call it that. But I call it 'room to think' rather than have the bible constantly thrust in my face that this is correct. Sides, as I said: my parents aren't exactly atheist or religious nor did really care if I had religious beliefs or not. Who cares about religion when it does not count for your overall grade point average? They let me be and did not actively question my beliefs as long as my grades were up to their standards. My main 'religious crisis' began with the dinosaurs: If the bible is god's book, why doesn't it mention dinosaurs? Now, I didn't have a religious network to look over this (and the internet wasn't around yet) so I had to come to my own conclusions (aka, pseudo logical thinking). Once this popped up: more unexplainable questions popped up like why are greek/viking/chinese/egyptian gods considered not 'the ones'? That started my path to atheism: I had room to think instead of a religious community to depend on for answers.

Now, my sister on the other hand you can say had a strong reinforcement of atheism, or at least skepticism. You can say I basically bullied her into atheism since she received a constant bombardment from me, moreso than from the school. lol. Again my parents did not actively question her as long as her grades were up. But, if I was religious: probably same results (me bullying her to one belief or another) except it'd be for the religious side.

@ryu: you forgot that it also aims to teach family planning. look at sec.3, d and j.

and with the bill 'helping babies get born alive and helping mothers survive childbirth', combined with family planning, more women can have the number of children they want with less or zero pregnancy complications from external factors.

true, increasing the live birth rate and decreasing maternal deaths don't help much with overpopulation, but add family planning, and you'll see what i mean.

@gabriela: regardless of what you're doing on the outside (woman eats right, no sudden impact on the stomach area, etc.), miscarriage is going to happen and you can't really do much about that. It's all by chance if the egg and the sperm are without mutations and will combine correctly. Should the resulting embryo have severe problems due to trisomy or other defects: it will be aborted naturally.

here's some stats on Miscarriage

oops...^^ eh...let me edit my post...

The reason why most Filipinos don't like the Reproductive Health Bill is that we do not want to become a Constrictive Country.

Conservative- # of Older people > # of Younger people.

Example of a country like this is Japan?

EDIT: The CBCP has finally seen the point. That point of which I speak is about the quality of life.

They just dont like the use of contraseptics and putting the reproductive health bill as a part of the curriculum in education.

Heimdall: I have changed much of my post. TY

You mean Conservative? Constrictive is something a python/boa would do to its prey.

@heimdall: that makes no sense at all.
conservative usually refers to ideology/politics, not people. In any given (developed) country you're going to have a constantly growing population of old people due to better nutrition/meds/etc. and a growing population of young people. What does it matter? You can have liberal old people and conservative young people.

And I don't get what you mean by 'filipinos don't buy into bill'. From what I'm getting, if you don't 'buy into'/support the bill you ARE conservative. Liberal people tend to be more 'yes on sex ed'

Oo?

@KTC: I just edited the post. I am stressing the point that if we have more old people than young people, then more younger people will depend on those who are older thus the need for health care and public service will rise. Also, the country's working strength number is low. However, if there are more younger people, the number of people who are working will not be enough, plus the need for education, health care and food will rise.

Thats why I want to see some revisions in that bill.

Um, usually it's the other way around. Older people depend on younger people. Like here in the US, the Older generations depend on the younger generations to work to put money into Social Security program. The more younger people there are, the more jobs there won't be available so the work force will be quite big.

Hello there. Mind if I give my two cents on the topic?

I'm a Filipino too, and I'm also one whose side is against the bill.

Regarding the issue on overpopulation, I don't believe there will be overpopulation. I've seen on the net a map of the Philippines regarding population, and I've seen that there are places in the Philippines that are more populated than the rest, and most of the country is actually less populated than we think.

Secondly, there is what we call the law of Check and Balance. What is in excess will be repressed. That's why we have predation in the natural world, and there is only an imbalance due to the rigorous killing of these predators in the wild. There is only imbalance when there is an abuse. Same with people, however, with the predation being replaced with natural calamities and disease.

Thirdly, there has also been a study (Nat Geo featured it, I think) that there will be no overpopulation because of the allocation of resources. As stated in my previous statement, there is only an imbalance if there is an abuse, specifically with the environment. The abuse of these resources culminates into the scarcity of it, which is why the process has become more difficult.

Also, if I recall correctly, this issue has been standing ever since 2001. I've read some forums on the internet that they had expected the population to explode by 2005. Well, it's 2011 right now, and I see no population explosion. O_O

And (just for the sake of ranting) we're not even in the Top Ten for the most populous countries. O_O

Regarding religion, IMHO I believe that these religious sectors are somewhat a type of non-government organization. Regarding Mopiece's argument on religion getting in the way of politics, I can still see the separation of the Church and State in this setting. The Church is like an activist group in that sense, where it fights for what it believes it is right. Those who go to church, however, still have the freedom of choice to believe in its same ideals or not. The choice is still the government's.

But I can see the point of how religion can be directly or indirectly "shoved" into the face of other people. Regarding KTC's argument on baptism, yes, the child can be baptized and can be taught a certain religion's ideals, but they can choose to accept or reject it as they grow up. Children aren't blank slates, you know. They have a certain intuition regarding things. They are free to choose.

Bad seeds are inevitable, though. Every organization has it. There are the fanatics and the close-minded people who can sour out an organization's mission and make it look bad when it actually isn't. But those are just bad seeds.
Regarding my argument on a person's choice whether to accept the teachings of a certain religion, I've personally met some wonderful people from religious sects who are quite understanding regarding matters like these. They will most certainly teach their ideals to others, but when they know that a person has chosen to do something else regardless for a good cause, they'll listen and they'll let the person choose. The Church, I believe, has a very good purpose; it's only the bad seeds that get in the way.

Finally, regarding why I am against the aforementioned bill: well, I've already spoke on my stance regarding overpopulation, so I'll move on to another factor. In regards to Gabriela's statement on the number of unemployed people, IMHO (this is the third time I used that abbreviation, ASDFGHJKLthere's a way to get by that.

There's one thing that keeps bugging me is that there's been a lot of talk about jobs but none about financial literacy. In Robert Kiyosaki's "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", if you focus just on jobs, you'll be caught in a rat race. This is a reality I've been observing in the poor areas of the Philippines where I've been. I've interviewed a family once and learned that they didn't even have a bank account although there was a nearby bank, because they didn't know how to work it. It's good to have an influx of jobs, but (IMHO) better to have a crash course in multiplying (legally) the money you get from those jobs. You know, teaching others to fish rather than just giving them fishes.

Also, regarding what Stardale had said: in Korea and Japan, if I'm not mistaken, there is now an ongoing campaign promoting childbirth, when years before it had campaigned otherwise. Which is another reason why I don't quite support the bill. Why campaign for something to only be counter-campaigned years later?

And (in regards to my aforementioned statement) because of the previous campaigning, there has been a prevailing feel that children are "burdens", and therefore choose to not have them at all. (From a Korean student's account while living in the Philippines)Regarding the question as to why the Church would stand against it is perhaps not so much the bill than the possible consequences that the bill may have. (And, in correlation to what Stardale said, which is why Japan has also an aging population because the younger generation chooses to not marry.)

Yes, perhaps if the RH Bill is granted in the Philippines, it MIGHT be more efficient (more emphasis on the MIGHT), however in my opinion the morality of the outcome is very much debatable. That's my two cents.

"
But I can see the point of how religion can be directly or indirectly "shoved" into the face of other people. Regarding KTC's argument on baptism, yes, the child can be baptized and can be taught a certain religion's ideals, but they can choose to accept or reject it as they grow up. Children aren't blank slates, you know. They have a certain intuition regarding things. They are free to choose."

^ only if the person is in an environment where they can question their beliefs. If you're in a place that discourages any type of meaningful dialogue, than its no good. Highly conservative environments will tend to generate highly conservative people. I point to southern states of US. They're called the bible belt states for a reason.

Essentially, you're gonna be brainwash/taught under whatever ideology your family, community, thrusts upon you. Whether you can actually confront said ideology will depend on how open your environment is to such confrontations.

@ KTC: Yes, indeed. Some, but not all.