Game of thorns

 

The soon-to-be law is anti-woman because it places squarely upon her shoulders the burden of birth control, with all the attendant physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual side effects. Husbands, fathers and sexual partners are mere spectators in this game of thorns – and the louder they doth proclaim to uphold women’s reproductive wellbeing, the farther they stay away from the encumbrances of responsible parenthood.

 

 

'An experience of well over forty years, says a physician writing in the British Medical Review, convinces me that the artificial limitation of the family causes damage to a woman's nervous system, and in generally poor health.'

'More good would come to our country through tongue control rather than birth control.' - Dr. Charles H. Mayo

And in this country, everyone speaks in strange tongues. Controlling the body’s strongest muscle entails sacrifice – which is a hard thing to do – and only a few are inclined to exercise restraint and abstinence.

So, now – after all is said and done, after all the discordant hue and cry about limiting human reproduction, after the last nail on the coffin is struck – I am going out on a limb to say that the RH Bill is ANTI-WOMAN. No shades of grey about it – fifty, sixty or a hundred different strokes for a hundred million different folks woefully ill-informed and acquiescent to the dictates of power.

The soon-to-be law is anti-woman because it places squarely upon her shoulders the burden of birth control, with all the attendant physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual side effects. Husbands, fathers and sexual partners are mere spectators in this game of thorns – and the louder they doth proclaim to uphold women’s reproductive wellbeing, the farther they stay away from the encumbrances of responsible parenthood. Who’s the stronger gender, anyway? Women power is not just another motherhood statement. We get stuck with the dirty job, every single effing day.

Thus, bring in the condoms already, lawmakers and business peeps. Teach 10-year-old kids how to use them now so that after a generation or two, the streets are rid of vagrant urchins and garbage scavengers. Shanties and riverbanks settlers would have disappeared from the urban landscape and the aging population is wallowing in meaningless wealth. Contraception, indeed, is the solution to poverty. In a disparate universe, maybe; or in one’s stubborn hallucinations.

RH, RH, RH - How do I love thee not? Let me count the ways...

After endlessly flicking the remote control and intermittently listening to the pros and cons being laid down on the Batasan floor in the midnight hour, it has become clear to me that House Bill 4244 is nothing more than a population control measure wrapped in a plastic packet marked reproductive health. Would controlling the birth of babies guarantee the eradication of poverty in this country? It’s just like asking, would the average ‘macho’ Filipino male choose to undergo vasectomy in order to reduce his spawn and make this a better place to live? Hah.

You, male authors and supporters of this bill, would you agree to remove from women the burden of ‘family planning’, ‘responsible parenthood’ or whatever fancy tag you call it, and have yourselves castrated? That is the surest and most effective way of decreasing births – within and outside of marriage. The line forms to the right, gentlemen. You have two or three kids already? Time to snip it. Your manhood won’t be diminished, promise.

Sure, provide pregnant women the best health care possible – including free vitamins and meds but excluding the unwarranted use of abortifacients – that’s not debatable. But the sad fact remains that women – being ‘cursed’ or ‘gifted’ with the uterus – have to bear the burden of reproduction and of controlling population at the same time. Take the pill and all its side effects, insert those weird-looking wires into their innards – while the husbands sit and look away. It’s time to man up and ‘bear the burden’, Dad. Give Mom a break. Make vasectomy obligatory. Then you’ll have my vote.

Do I want my little nephews and nieces to be taught in school how to make babies even as they themselves are still babies? NO. Children these days are already overexposed as they are to sex and violence in all forms of media, what’s to stop them anymore from ‘experimenting’, i.e. indulging early and contributing a few more to the population explosion?  Sex education is more important for ten-year-old kids than GMRC, catechism and stuff that have long ago disappeared from the primary school curriculum? Come on, Brother DepEd, Doctor DoH. Leave the ill rhetoric to showboating congressmen; they have work to do for their rich benefactors, um, poor constituents…

Do I want my teenaged nephews to carry condoms everywhere because it is the ‘safe’ way to do it? NO. That only encourages them to practice what their elders preach:  just do it. Government distributing contraceptives to teenagers – is it just me or have our morals gone to the murky waters of Pasig River? Would using condoms guarantee that no ‘unwanted’ babies are made? And would giving away those rubber dickies insure that the recipients will use it? In the same token, does the presence of CCTV cameras deter criminals from committing crimes? Incidentally, the grapevine says that the world's biggest manufacturer of condoms will be brought in by the country’s most ubiquitous businessman. It’s all about the money, folks. Reproductive health, so-called, is just a flimsy smokescreen.

Does the Church calling on its faithful to reject the bill constitute meddling in State affairs? The thin line that separates Church and State has never been trod more gingerly here. Did anyone from civil society raise a howl in February 1986 when the late Cardinal Sin called on the people to march to EDSA, and the nuns formed human barricades to prevent the soldiers from firing? I rest my case…and my unproductive ovaries. I may not have personally contributed to the baby boom but I am happy to see my siblings’ and cousins’ children – living, breathing, smiling, thriving creatures of God basking in their place under the heavens. I am happy that their parents didn’t have to be confronted with the dilemma of choice or life, the Great Conscience Debate, as it were, that couples today are being made to face; that they are not products of ‘unwanted’ pregnancies (because their ‘protection’ didn’t work), and they are loved no matter the circumstances.

Most of all, I am happy that my own parents did not practice family planning because – embryo, fetus, germ, seed, fertilized egg or unfertilized  ovum, whatever scientific term they call it, the naysayers be damned –  all six of us have the RIGHT TO BE HERE.

 

I don't need another hero

One lucky punch does not unmake a great champion. One shocking defeat does not diminish his accomplishments. All the blood, guts and gore he has spilled every time he stepped on the ring – he did so carrying on his shoulders the burdens of this country’s little people. (You politicians, who have made ‘para sa bayan’ your perennial campaign slogan, how much body fluids have you excreted in the name of your so-called constituents?) The fame and fortune he has accumulated in return, he got from honest TOIL – why begrudge him the perks that he and his family enjoy? (You with the crab mentality – have you done something honorable for your country lately?)

You’re still the man, PACMAN. No one has come close to you, at this day and age of wanton self-glorification, in defining true Filipino-ness and instilling Filipino pride. But please stay away from the packs of vultures already – they have fed from your palms long enough. And go back to the Rosary – if you still didn’t know it that was the missing link.