Miriam questions IQ of Church leaders opposing RH bill

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago on Friday criticized local officials of the Roman Catholic Church for opposing the passage of the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) bill currently pending in Congress. In her keynote speech delivered at the Centro Escolar University in Manila on the occasion of Human Rights Day, Santiago questioned the intelligence of Catholic Church officials who oppose the RH bill and the use of artificial birth control methods such as condoms and pills. “Bakit ang mga pari? Matataas ba ang mga IQ nila? [What’s so notable about priests? Do they have high IQs?]" she said. Santiago, who authored the Senate version of the measure, also said that it is “very, very dangerous" for Church officials to claim that they know what God wants for Filipinos. “For me, it is very, very dangerous for any person to say, ‘I know what God wants.’ Really? May cellphone ba siya [Does God use a cellphone]?" she said in the same speech.
The Senate started tackling Senate Bill No. 2378, Santiago’s version of the RH bill, last October despite strong opposition from Church officials and other pro-life groups. In the House of Representatives, meanwhile, the House population committee has also started its own discussion of House Bill 96 authored by Minority Leader Edcel Lagman. The discussions of the RH bill in Congress are proceeding in the face of threats of civil disobedience from the Roman Catholic Church if the measure is passed into law. The Catholic Church promotes only natural family planning and is opposed to the use of artificial birth control methods such as condoms and birth-control pills, saying these could lead to promiscuity and a rise in abortion cases. In turn, RH advocates say that natural family planning methods have not proven to be as reliable as artificial means of birth control.—Andreo C. Calonzo/JV, GMANews.TV