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No, the RH bill is not the answer to all our economic problems. Let’s get that clear. We believe it’s a small step, just one step towards making this country a slightly better place for its people. For the people who have to earn more than they should for 7++ children, for the women sharing beds at a public hospital, for the teenagers raped at their early teens and end up bearing children per year after that. These are actual stories from doctors and nurses who have suffered seeing this every day (and working for free might I add)—suffering not only from the harsh reality but also from being powerless to do nothing about it. Because when these patients come home, their husbands will come home drunk and force themselves upon their wives or even on their daughters. 

Tell me, how much money must education funnel out to solve that problem? That specific, terrifying, isolated problem.

I’ve been paying taxes for the last three years. And as a commuter, it frustrates me that none of it has gone to better public transportation. Or better roads or a better sewage system. I face this problem every working day: I have to go to work to earn a living, but I don’t want to waste pamasahe on the flood-ridden streets going there.

I am powerless against this of course. All I can do is write; all I can do is voice out my opinions and intellectualize.

Providing women post-abortion care (but note, NOT legalizing abortion) and giving them defenses against repeated pregnancies—which can endanger the body when pushed to the limit—empowers the women I just mentioned somewhat. It’s a first step. It doesn’t change the fact we live in a chauvinistic, machismo society. That’s not what the RH bill hopes to solve. That’s what education should solve—wait, that’s a moral problem the Church has to be preaching against.

By “providing information and access, without bias, to all methods of family planning,” the woman is given a choice. It does not mean she is stopping a life. She is defending herself; guarding herself from another miscarriage that could stop her from making a living for the children she already has. She is saving her life and the lives that are already exist. 

I am a woman and I want the woman to protect herself and her family.