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MANILA — In what is expected to mark a pivotal moment in this rapidly developing but still impoverished nation, the Supreme Court of the Philippines will weigh next month the constitutionality of a new reproductive-health law that pits the entrenched power of the Roman Catholic establishment against a rising tide of modernization and economic aspiration.
The measure, which was signed into law in December after a bitter 14-year battle between women’s rights advocates and Catholic bishops, would fund access to contraceptives for the nation’s poorest women. The key question before the court is whether it violates a 1987 constitutional guarantee of protection for “the life of the unborn from conception.”
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Catholic bishops in this profoundly Catholic country of 96 million argue that any form of contraception other than Vatican-approved “natural” methods or abstinence is tantamount to abortion. They also warn that the RH bill, as it is called here, is the first step down a slippery slope that will inevitably lead to the legalization of abortion, euthanasia, divorce and same-sex marriage.
The law has been backed by a loose alliance of women’s groups, medical professionals, academics, business leaders, celebrities and a few progressive Catholic organizations. It also received key support from President Benigno Aquino III, who ignored threats of excommunication to actively campaign for its approval.
Archbishop Ramon Arguelles, a vice-chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said that Aquino’s support for the RH bill was a declaration of “open war” on the church.
It is not a war the bishops intend to lose. Long accustomed to a position of unquestioned power and privilege in the Philippines, the church hierarchy fears that its moral authority is eroding in the face of dynamic economic growth — the Philippines has just replaced China as the fastest growing economy in the region — coupled with the deepening frustration of the many millions who remain mired in poverty.
Although 80 percent of the population here identifies itself as Catholic, polls have consistently indicated that slightly more than 70 percent support the reproductive health law.
“For the Catholic Church here and for the Vatican, this is a real struggle. This is a country they don’t want to lose. We are the last bastion of Catholicism in the Old World colonies,” said Sylvia Estrada-Claudio, director of the University of the Philippines Center for Women’s Studies and a longtime activist for reproductive health.
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