The following excerpt was taken from ABS-CBN.com:
MANILA, Philippines – Barangay Ayala Alabang in Muntinlupa City is now requiring people who buy condoms to present a doctor’s prescription.
In a barangay ordinance last January 3, village officials said condoms and other contraceptives cause abortions. The ordinance also bars teachers, reproductive health advocates, and social workers from holding sex education activities in the barangay without prior consultation with parents of students.
Local officials also banned advertisement of all forms of contraceptives in the village. They said “contraceptive pills, hormonal contraceptives, and the IUD may kill children and injure the health of women who use them.”
Village officials also believe that contraceptives “undermine the solidarity of families by promoting premarital sex, giving rise to more fatherless children, more single mothers, more poverty, and more abortions.”
The resolution also claims that condoms are “unconstitutional” because “they promote and sanction immoral sexual congresses among the unmarried and especially among the young, thereby contradicting the Constitutional injunction that the State ‘shall promote and protect … the physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual and social well-being of the youth.”
Those who will violate the ordinance can be fined up to P500 or jailed for up to 4 months. Village officials said foreigners who will violate the measure should also be deported.
Muntinlupa City officials have yet to comment on the ordinance.
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Money can buy you a new nose, new boobs, even a new dick. But as the above shows, money can’t buy you brains or common sense.
When I first read the news, my blood boiled. So I took it out on Twitter. Then I received the following tweet in response to my mine: Bakit naman sila naging tanga? Wala naman sila naviolate na Constitutional right eh. It took all of me not to tweet back: Isa ka pa. Malamang nakatira ka sa AAV.
What makes this more infuriating is that I wouldn’t be surprised that among the barangay officials who signed the ordinance into law, there are those who honestly believe that what they are doing is for the good of their constituents. They think that this is a moral war and that they are trying to keep their exclusive village exclusively for the Pope. (Wait, hold on. Didn’t the Pope himself acknowledge that condoms use can be justified?) Okay fine. Maybe we should just let them be. After all, if their daughters get pregnant, they can afford to raise the child. Or they can always whisk their daughters away to another country, get an abortion, then come back. Oops wait, didn’t they say that “condoms and other contraceptives cause abortions”? Stupid is as stupid says.
Ayala Alabang is such a protected village. The irony is that the officials are now trying to protect their constituents from protection.
5 comments:
At hinanap ko talaga kung sino and nag-tweet na yun. Hehe. ;P
Out of curiosity, gusto ko makakita ng tunay na condom prescription. Ung kumpleto with inscription, subscription, signatura, refills...
the last time i heard of such (related) news was when a whole village turned hemophiliac.
maybe it will continue in AA.
from gmanews.tv:
[A disapproving Ayala Alabang resident] added that the ordinance assumes that majority of the residents in the barangay are wealthy and do not need access to reproductive health services from the government.
"How about the helpers and other employees who cannot afford to go to a physician to get a prescription for pills or condoms? They may not have access to these services because the barangay is restricting it," he said.
"Without condoms, they may be at risk for STDs," he added. "Will that work for the community?"
please let's not reinforce the notion that only the rich will be affected by this.
furthermore, it sets a precedent. if people in ayala alabang can be penalized, why not the whole country?
ayala alabang could be any barangay, yours and mine.
the only way that class factors into this is how the wealthy can prove to be the biggest ass-kissers of the catholic church, and how quickly they can wield their power.
In addition, Brgy. Ayala Alabang is not 100% rich. The barangay includes Sitio Masagana which is a slum area beside Alabang Town Center.
Bagong kabanata: http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/metro-manila/02/27/11/rh-bill-advocate-ayala-alabang-officials-may-be-dismissed
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