MORAL LAWS VERSUS MORAL VALUES

The manifest confusion, the hems and haws, shown by NEDA Director Balisacan when recently grilled by Sen. President Juan Ponce Enrile (PDI) on the relevance of population and economy may indeed be typical of an economist, as head-scratching Sen Francis Drilon has observed.

But Balisacan's sudden turnaround, his change of position -- this time saying the country's rather high population growth really constrains its economic development -- during an ambush interview by reporters after Enrile left does not speak well of an economist who is a also Cabinet official.  That is plain double talk, a rather desperate effort towards damage control, given that one of the bases of President Aquino's leaning towards the passage of RH Bill is population control.

Enrile is known to be against the RH Bill.  His said grilling of Balisacan was thus a foretaste of what would happen in the Senate when Senators themselves eventually debate on this long-subsisting controversial legislation.

Even as in the House the administration congressmen may have succeeded towards ending the debates and proceeding with the bill amendments/correction stage, I still believe the bill will finally still end up kaput, if not in the House, surely in the Senate.  It is unfortunate that this issue seems to be creating a religious war -- we all know the most vocal proponents of the RH Bill are not Roman Catholics.  It is ironic that in this country, the most predominantly Catholic nation in the Far East, the State and the Church has been manifestly divided.

For me, the issue here is sheer moral "laws", not just moral "values".  Morale laws are absolute and objective, such as "Thou shalt" and Thou shalt not."  They are not relative and subjective, such that  "your" moral values, "my" moral values and/or "society's" moral values may indeed differ, depending upon the prevailing situations or circumstances. I mean, contraception is definitely anti-life -- imagine
preventing the very seed of life from germinating -- and is therefore against moral law, which is obligatory, not optional.  Suppose a teenage child has a boyfriend who dates her regularly without their parents' knowledge.  To get pregnant outside of wedlock is unquestionably wrong, being against morale law.  Can that wrong be righted with the girl taking contraceptive pills or the boy using condoms?  Definitely not. That, in a nutshell, is where the Roman Catholic Church firmly stands on this issue, which those on the other side cannot understand simply because they consider that moral laws and moral values are the same.  The situation is not far from a  millionaire who escapes from paying his income tax -- which is required by law -- and instead donates his money to charity or distributes the amount he should have paid to government as Income Tax as regular alms to the poor. 
He may have been exercising an excellent morale value, but he is violating a morale law and may be imprisoned if caught by the government.

The RH Bill proponents also keep saying all they want is to give  parents the freedom of choice between natural and artificial family planning.  That's a lot of hogwash.  Truth is, they are removing an already existing freedom of choice, as indeed, that's what a law always does, to tie people's hands into doing what the State wants.  An already existing freedom of choice, indeed! Consider this.  At present, when a couple plans to marry, they will first go to City Hall to get a license.  At City Hall they will be subjected to seminar that emphasizes the use of contraceptives.  At least in our place, bibigyan pa nga sila ng isa o dalawang kahong condoms.  Then, when they go to their parish to schedule the church wedding, they will also be put in a seminar that teaches them natural family planning.  O, di ba, ano pa ba namang freedom of choice we are talking about.

The RH Bill also wants to transfer the time-honored responsibility of the parents to educate their children on sex, or to put it bluntly, on the subject, "bata, bata, paano ka ba ginawa?"  to their teachers.  It is true that, probably because of other more prior family needs, such as looking for their daily bread, most mothers in our midst and times may not really be doing this responsibility.  So, the RH Bill want it taught in school.  Wrong!  Shouldn't the righter solution be to encourage, even compel -- I don't know how -- parents not to forget this duty of theirs to their children, NOT to transfer it to teachers.  Imagine what will happen.  We all know that in the privacy of their room, husband and wife do not even talk of anything about sexual intercourse --they just do it -- dahil parang nababastusan sila na pag-usapan ito.  Now, the government wants this discussed daily -- vocally at that like any other school subject -- by teachers and their pupils.  For one thing, since the mother tongue is now required to be the medium of instruction in the primary grades, paano nga ba ita-translate ng maestra from English to the mother tongue and salitang "coitus" and many other related words without feeling embarrassed or hindi pinagtatawanan ng kanyang mag-aaral?  Let's accept it, our traditional values as a nation are far different from those of the West where, for example, "Fuck you" is common place but in this country is downright taboo?

There are surely many other common-sense arguments I wish to cite against the RH Bill, but I do not wish to make this blog unduly long.  I would certainly appreciate feedback from my readers.