Go to grass roots, Lagman daughter tells Church

14 September 2008, inside page
By Ephraim Aguilar

TABACO CITY, Philippines—If there is one staunch advocate of the controversial reproductive health bill in Congress aside from its principal author, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, it would be Krisel Lagman-Luistro.

Aside from being the lawmaker’s daughter, she is the mayor of this city and a nurse by profession.

As a local official and health worker, Lagman-Luistro says she operates in the grass roots, where the problems that the bill seeks to address lie.

“Every time I wed couples, I ask them how many children they want to have. Most couples say two,” Lagman-Luistro said.

The average family size in the region, however, is around five.

Lagman-Luistro said the government can and should help couples bridge the gap between their desired family size and its attainment.

On Friday, ahead of the plenary debates on her father’s proposed reproductive health bill, the mayor called on the Catholic Church to listen to the problems of poor families.

She said the Catholic Church would be rendering itself “irrelevant” to its flock by continuously opposing the measure. She said an overwhelming number of Filipinos “strongly approve of the government’s allocation of funds for modern contraceptives.”

“If the Catholic Church wants to continue to be significant in the lives of the faithful, it must listen to its flock or risk becoming irrelevant,” she said.

The Church opposes the use of contraceptives.

Lagman-Luistro said parish priests who meet with the people face-to-face should tell their superiors of their community’s problems regarding unwanted pregnancies, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, overpopulation and poverty.

“But the problem with the Catholic hierarchy is that it has become even more political than the government,” she said.

Lagman-Luistro said that contrary to the claims of the Church, the reproductive health bill or HB 5043 does not promote abortion but hopes to prevent unplanned pregnancies.

“We simply want to give people more choices on family planning,” she said.

Lagman-Luistro said they also support natural family planning as one option but it does not work with all couples.

Lagman-Luistro said the Church and the government should allow people to choose other legal, safe and effective means to plan their families.

“I cannot, as a leader, choose for my people. In the same way that the Church leaders should not choose for their flock. We are promoting choice,” she said.

When Lagman-Luistro represented the first district of Albay in Congress in 2001, she authored House Bill 4110 or the “Reproductive Health Care Act,” which served as the basis for her father’s HB 5043.

“When opposition to HB 4110 arose, it’s signatories withdrew one by one. The bill only reached the committee level,” she recounted.