RH Bill In Da Haus!

And so it came to pass that on the early part of Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012, sometime past one in the morning, I was in the bedroom reading the latest issue of my “bible,” Entertainment Weekly, when D yelled from the living room, “They passed the RH Bill!”

So I switched on the telly, and lo and behold. So they did! The House of Representatives had voted to pass the RH Bill on second reading. The margin was slim at 113 versus 104, but still it was a victory for those in favor of the Bill.

I watched as the senior female correspondent of the news channel interviewed a bishop who was with an anti-RH Bill group picketing outside the Batasan Pambansa. The bishop stated that he believed the RH Bill was passed because President Noynoy “enticed” his party members with political and financial perks if they vote in favor of the Bill. The correspondent countered that the Church also was not remiss in flexing their influence over the lawmakers, but the bishop quickly countered, “But we have no pork barrel, unlike the government.”

Ah, dear bishop.

Yes, you cannot entice lawmakers with material goods. But you did threaten all of us with spiritual blackmail. Don’t you remember, dear bishop? Didn’t the good ol’ Catholic Church threaten lawmakers and ordinary folks alike with excommunication for being pro-RH Bill? Excommunication is one of the harshest things you can inflict on a person’s spiritual well-being. And yet, there are Catholics in those 113 who voted “Aye.” Yes, dear bishop. We may be spirits living in a material world, but reality bites. Hard.

Chew on that, dear bishop.