Sotto says RH foreign backers advocating abortion
SENATE Majority Leader Tito Sotto yesterday said that at least four nongovernment organizations presenting themselves as “prowomen” had received funding from international groups advocating abortion.
In the second salvo of his series against the reproductive health (RH) bill, Sotto said that these international organizations, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID), have programs targeting developing countries that aim to reduce their populations.
Sotto told a packed Senate gallery and a national TV audience that the local NGOs—the Family Planning Organization of the Philippines (FPOP), Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) and its affiliate Likhaan and the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines (DSWP)—had actively participated in hearings on the RH bill.
Among those in the gallery was former Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral who on Tuesday asked Sotto to produce the death certificate of his infant son whom the senator on Monday said was conceived despite the contraceptives his wife took. Cabral said contraceptives could not be responsible for the “weak heart” suffered by Sotto’s son. The senator said he would produce his son’s death certificate.
Sotto said the NGOs “want to make it appear that their interest is the health of our women. But my research showed that they have partnered with foreign organizations to acquaint our society with modern and liberal RH schemes.”
He said the FPOP received $625,095, “or almost P27.5 million,” in 2011 from the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).
“The FPOP’s website displays the organization’s support for the use of abortive facilities. In fact, the FPOP posted on its website an instructional brochure discussing different methods of abortion, depending on the weeks of pregnancy,” Sotto said.
“Furthermore, FPOP’s website is linked to a website named Women on Waves which provides contacts to abortion clinics worldwide,” he said.
Abortion a global agenda
Sotto noted that IPPF had a global agenda to promote abortion and the dissemination of contraceptives.
The RHAN, on the other hand, even “submitted a budget proposal to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) containing a budget allocation for ‘nurturing legislators’ to expedite the passage of the RHbill,” he said.
Sotto described Likhaan as among the local groups “actively pushing for the RH bill.
“Likhaan openly supports abortion, as it features in its website step by step procedure on how to abort a baby. To make matters worse, the instructional material desperately intends to reach the Filipino masses by using the Filipino language and putting pictures that clearly illustrate how to abort,” he said.
“In addition, there is a video featuring Dr. Junice Melgar, the head of Likhaan who was quoted as saying, ‘If you are prowomen, you will have contacts to the services that are underground’ and whose other statements refer to abortion service providers,” he added.
“These organizations have such huge budgets so it’s not surprising that they have very active campaigns for the RH bill on radio, TV, print and especially the Internet,” Sotto noted.
The senator blasted foreign organizations funding the local NGOs. They include the USAID, World Health Organization, World Bank and economic agencies whom he said “were given a directive to gear their policies and programs toward promoting the reduction of the world’s population especially in less developed countries” based on National Security Memorandum 200 issued by Henry Kissinger.
US directs programs
Sotto said Kissinger was “the source of the entire family plan- ning, population and poverty reduction programs of the US. All loans, grants and aid coming from the US and Western powers must be based on the reduction of population through birth control.”
“Since the USAID is the principal instrument for the socalled development programs, there are NGOs and government agencies in the Philippines that have been contacted, supported and funded by it,” he added.
“These foreign organizations underhandedly seek to legalize abortion in countries where it is still a crime. And that I believe is exactly what they’re doing now in our country through this bill,” said Sotto, one of the staunchest opponents of the RH bill.
He also questioned the claim of the RH bill backers that 11 Filipino mothers die everyday due to childbirth complications. He said he had sent his staff to conduct a nationwide survey of government hospitals to verify this detail.
Instead of confirming this, however, Sotto said the Nueva Viscaya provincial hospital recorded only two maternal deaths for the entire 2011; the Pangasinan provincial hospital, four deaths; and the Batangas Regional Hospital, seven deaths out of 2,584 deliveries last year.
Cavite Naval Hospital recorded no maternal deaths for 2011 at all, he said.