Palace softens stance on RH bill, drops birth control in Ledac meet 02/08/2011

Palace softens stance on RH bill, drops birth control in Ledac meet

02/08/2011
An expanded list of priority bills to be discussed in the first Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (Ledac) meeting scheduled on Feb. 28 was finally presented by Malacañang to the media yesterday but it did not include the controversial Responsible Parent-hood (RP) bill, Freedom of Information (FoI) bill as well the Whistleblowers Act which President Aquino previously said he would vouch for.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda explained that the five-pronged RP bill or the sanitized version of the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill was omitted from the list out of courtesy to the members of the Catholic Church pending the final results of their dialogs.

“I think that’s the whole idea of holding a dialog (is) to listen to their (Church leaders’) views. We have made that position very clear with them. We will maintain the five-point statement (on RP bill) but we would like to have their views as well. So we are going to finish the dialog and whatever inputs they have there — without necessarily moving away from our position of providing access to both natural and artificial family planning methods — will also be placed in part and parcel of the Responsible Parenthood bill,” Lacierda told reporters at a news conference.

“The President has not backtracked on this (Responsible Parenthood Bill). We are aware of the sensitivity of this issue and the President is keen on listening to all sectors concerned,” Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. explained for his part..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/headlines/20110208hed3.html