BAGUIO CITY — The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Republic Act 10354, or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, more popularly known as the RH law is constitutional, except for eight provisions.
In a press briefing broadcast over radio and television stations in from Baguio City, Supreme Court spokesperson Theodore Te said, “The RH law is not unconstitutional>”
The high court has been holding its summer session in Baguio City since March 21.
“This monumental decision upholds the separation of church and state and affirms the supremacy of government in secular concerns like health and socio-economic development,” former Albay representative Edcel Lagman, the principal author of the law, said immediately after the verdict.
“A grateful nation salutes the majority of justices for their favorable ruling promoting reproductive health and giving impetus to sustainable human development,” Lagman added.
Among the sections declared unconstitutional are Sections 7, 17 and 23 of the RH Law.
Section 7 refers to access to family planning, wherein all accredited public health facilities are required to provide a full range of modern family planning methods, which shall also include medical consultations, supplies and necessary and reasonable procedures for poor and marginalized couples having infertility issues who desire to have children. This section also required private hospitals owned by religious groups to refer patients to other health facilities which are accessible to the patient.
The high court also struck down as unconstitutional the provision that would allow minors to have access to modern family planning methods.
Associate Justice Jose Catral Mendoza, Sr. Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, and Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita De Castro, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano Del Castillo, Roberto Abad, Martin Villarama Jr., and Jose Portugal Perez, voted as unconstitutional Section 7, and the corresponding provision in the RH-Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) insofar as they require private health facilities and non-maternity specialty hospitals and hospitals owned and operated by religious groups to refer patients, not in an emergency or life-threatening case, as defined under R.A. No. 8344.
Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. Aranal Sereno and Associate Justices Bienvenido Reyes, Estela Perlas-Bernabe and Marvic Leonen voted constitutional on the same provision.
Associate Justices Mendoza, Carpio, Velasco, De Castro, Brion, Peralta, Bersamin, Del Castillo, Abad, Villarama and Perez voted unconstitutional on Section 7, insofar as they allow minor-patients or minors who have suffered a miscarriage as a result of access to modern methods of family planning without written consent from their parents or guardians.
Chief Justice Sereno and Associate Justices Reyes, Perlas-Bernabe and Leonen voted constitutional on the same provision.
Section 17, which was also declared unconstitutional by the high court, referred to the requirement for 48 hours of pro bono services that should be given by private and nongovernment reproductive healthcare service providers to indigent women as a prerequisite in the accreditation under Philhealth.
Another section declared unconstitutional is section 23 which listed the prohibited acts under the RH Law and the penalties to be meted for those who would commit the listed prohibited acts.
The RH law was signed by President Benigno Aquino III, who defied intense lobbying by the Catholic church, on December 21, 2012.
The new statute was immediately challenged by 14 petitions filed before the Supreme Court by groups associated with the church. The high court first issued a four-month temporary restraining order against
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said the Supreme Court’s decision was “important to the future of our country.”
“We cannot stress the importance of this decision. This is a real victory, especially for children, women and their families,” he said.
Both Belmonte and Lagman said that the eight provisions stricken out of the law would not affect its objectives.
“The goals and objectives of the law will still be achieved,” Belmonte said when asked about the provisions declared unconstitutional.
In a separate statement, the Purple Ribbon for RH movement thanked the high court for helping the advocacy for reproductive health advance.
“This day is made more meaningful by the Supreme Court by giving justice to years of struggle for the law and recognizing the contribution of everyone — individuals from all walks of life, different sectors, from the government offices to the grassroots — who fought hard to have this law. This is a manifestation of the Supreme Court’s respect for the will of the majority,” the group said.
RH advocates said it would continue to keep watch on how the law would be implemented with adequate government backing, including funding.
“For as long as the State is still mandated and empowered to implement a reproductive health program with the appropriate funding necessary for it to reach Filipinos in need, the historic Supreme Court decision is still a victory for the people, albeit incomplete,” Dinagat Island Representative Kaka Bag-ao said.
Former Health Secretary Esparanza Cabral, one of the convenors of the Purple Ribbon for RH, said they expect the government to fully support the law’s implementation so that its benefits would be felt by the people.
Gabriela party-list Representative Luz Ilagan said the high court was correct in upholding the constitutionality of the law, adding that “the right to health is as basic as the right to life.”
“More women can be saved from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. But with or without the RH law, it is the government’s obligation to provide services. Now we wait the implementation of the law,” Ilagan said.
The United Nations in the country also hailed the ruling, saying it joined the Filipino people in celebrating “this landmark ruling which recognizes the basic human right of Filipinos to reproductive health.”
The Catholic church, which counts over 80 percent of the country’s 100 million population as members, had led street protests denouncing the law as “evil” and, at one point in its opposition campaign, threatened Aquino with excommunication.
‘Civil disobedience’
One of the law’s hardline opponents and a petitioner to the court, former senator Francisco Tatad, said allowing the law to take effect could force Catholics into an open revolt.
“This means civil disobedience at the very least, actual revolt at the most extreme,” Tatad wrote in a commentary in the Manila Times newspaper on Tuesday. “Some of us will want to defy the power of the devil and die as martyrs, if need be, in the only cause that gives us a chance to fight for something much bigger than ourselves.”
Catholic Church leaders have helped lead two revolutions that toppled unpopular presidents in recent Philippine history, and they continue to insist they have a right to influence the parliamentary and legal branches of government.
A recent survey carried by the respected Social Weather Stations polling group said about 84 percent of Filipinos agreed that the government should provide free family planning options such as contraceptives.
It said 72 percent were “in favor” of the law.
Women’s rights groups and other supporters of the law say it will be a powerful tool in fighting poverty and cutting the birth rate of 3.54, one of the highest in the world.
More than a quarter of the population live on the equivalent of 62 cents a day, according to the government, and experts say there is an urgent need to provide free reproductive medical services that the poor can not otherwise afford.
More than a third of the capital’s 14 million population live in sprawling slums, according to a 2010 World Health Organization report, and many of them do not have access to proper sanitation, let alone health centres.
According to the British medical charity Merlin, which has backed the passage of the law, 14-15 mothers die daily in the Philippines in complications related to child birth.
(Eagle News Service with reports from Juliet Caranguian, Philippine News Agency and Agence France Press)
