By Nonong Contreras

It is not overpopulation which is the issue. Poverty is caused by corruption and social inequalities, not overpopulation. – Nonong Contreras

L ike a broken record, the pro-RH advocates have again played the familiar refrain of tracing maternal deaths to the myth about overpopulation.

In her latest column, Rina David lamented cases of unhappy wives looking for comfort through reassuring words from the husbands that they still have love their spouses. She then tries to capitalize on such situations by connecting these to the urgency of passing the RH bill. Like many other columnists who mistake effects as causes, David was clearly left of field on this one as she maneuvered through the maze of Malacañang gobbledygook coming from Ona, Soliman and Lacierda who up to now, cannot decipher President Noynoy's stand on RH.

While Lacierda made earlier pronouncements on RH being delisted from the list of certified bills by Malacañang, Ona and Soliman (he of the kidneys' for sale issue and she of the peace bonds' scam) the trio reportedly sang a different tune proclaiming that the President "is already in tune" with the pro-RH stand.

"The winds of March that made my heart a dancer," would be Sinatra's croon of a tune to this malignant trio inflicting confusion to an already-muddled issue.

At about the same time as David's fatal non-sequitur, Raul Pangalangan adds to the triple whammy of tirades on the RH bill by commenting on the Ayala Alabang's barangay ordinance on the Protection of the Unborn Child. Facetiously, Pangalangan indicates that the barangay's move does the pro-RH advocates a big favor because it releases this group from overcoming the social-justice argument of pro-lifers that taxpayers' money cannot be spent on items that violate religious dogma. Pangalangan sadly misses the point of the Alabangers. Even if Alabang couples were to choose to buy their own condoms at their own time and choosing, it does not prevent them anyway or anyone for that matter from purchasing these at the convenience or nearby sari-sari stores. These are available and sold openly  even without an RH bill!

Legislating the free distribution of contraceptives and abortifacients is clearly a deterrent that regulates. It does not stop. If it deters, then it would have achieved its purpose of prevention of the sale but not its actual sale.

P angalangan continues to call it "voyeurism" to make it hard for people to purchase because of additional restrictions. Adding malice to an act which clearly upholds the Catholic doctrine of a natural act of married couples to achieve the beginning of life at the point of conception does a disservice both to the Church and the basic law of the land.

The Constitution, Pangalangan conveniently forgets, recognizes conception as the beginning of life and any act that thwarts its fruition also becomes patently unconstitutional. This is a basic issue pro-RH adherents have always avoided.

And here comes the coup-de-grace to the triple whammy. We refer to no other than the warped logic of the Filipino-Chinese Federation casting its lot with the RH bill because more children become a burden rather than a blessing. Quite easily, they could have learned that the great economic machine that their relatives in the Chinese mainland have been responsible for was not caused by a smaller population but a quarter of the world's population on which land their compatriots reside. So is the economic miracle of India with the second largest population in the world. One that does not have to extended lengths understanding that without people, the other factors of production related to machines, equipment, money and materials remain inert unless people make them move and harness them well.

The point to be stressed is quite elementary. It is not overpopulation which is the issue. Poverty is caused by corruption and social inequalities, not overpopulation.

Until David, Pangalangan and Bernas address quite basic issues nagging to be answered on basic constitutionality, the demographic winters of the West caused by legislating depopulation measures, the meta-studies on the dangers of contraception, the economic miracles wrought by nations with the most populations, the US Lower Houses' overwhelming negative vote on funding Planned Parenthood and many other questions raised by pro-lifers, the RH bills will continue to fester on its infirmities and would be best laid to rest by relegating it to the dustbin of forgettable memories. # # #