3 Billion PHP for Reproductive Health Bill

That’s how much it’s going to cost you and me, the taxpayers. You would think that this staggering number — THREE WHOPPING BILLION PESOS — would be enough to give supporters of the RH Bill pause, but no. They shrug their shoulders and move on.

Let’s consider this for a few moments: What could be done with PHP 3 B?

MEDICAL HELP — Hospitals and other medical facilities could be built, mobile clinics could be funded, certainly more medicine for the poor. Hey, how about putting this money towards a cure for dengue, or malaria? How about we cure the sick instead of plying them with contraceptives?

EDUCATION — How about a basic education for children (not talking about sex education here)? Let’s build classrooms, schools. Let’s increase the salary of public school teachers. Let’s hire more teachers.

FOOD — the most basic of needs. Let’s fix the agricultural sector and help our farmers. Let’s grow rice, invest in better varietals, purchase fertilizers and help spread the use of sustainable agriculture.

SHELTER — Houses for the homeless. Rural areas need to be developed. The poor need to learn skills so they can work. They need jobs, so they can support themselves — THAT’S the way to alleviate poverty.

Three billion pesos is A LOT OF MONEY for condoms and pills. Predictably, a goodly portion of that will find its way into those that help further the IPPF’s agenda. Our taxes will go to rich, multinational pharmaceutical companies, instead of to the poor. GREED once again takes precedence, and once again, it will be done under the guise of “helping the poor”.

Let’s look at this a little closer. From a donor’s perspective, a child can be sponsored for as little as $25 to $30 a month. That’s $300-360 a year. You could potentially keep close to 200,000 children alive on that kind of money each year.

How do we trust a government that doesn’t think twice about digging into our pockets while lining theirs? All of our corruption issues have been from government projects and programs, the ZTE scandal, for instance; the the fertilizer scam, and most recently corruption in the AFP. And we’re supposed to trust them to properly handle P3B? You have got to be kidding. We need this Reproductive Health Bill like we need a hole in the head.