Tag Archives: Country: Philippines

Voice of America: orona was impeached by the House of Representatives in December on corruption allegations as well as accusations that he tried to block prosecution of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

News from The Associated Press: The chief justice of the Philippine Supreme Court warned Wednesday that President Benigno Aquino III’s moves to oust him could lead to a dictatorship and vowed to defend himself in an impeachment trial.

News from The Associated Press: The Philippine House of Representatives impeached the Supreme Court chief justice Monday over alleged corruption and favoritism toward the country’s former president, now under hospital arrest for alleged election fraud.

News from The Associated Press: The Philippine health chief is under attack for suggesting at an AIDS conference that health workers survey homes of gay children and warn their parents about potentially risky behavior.

AFP: Various armed groups are known to operate near the area, including Muslim separatist rebels waging a decades-old insurgency and former guerrillas who have branched out into crime, including kidnappings and robbery.

LifeNews.com: A diplomatic cable recently published by the controversial website Wikileaks confirms the depth of support by the U.S. government for population control initiatives in the Philippines over the past 40 years, including support for the highly contested Reproductive Health (RH) Bill currently under consideration in the Philippine legislature.

LifeNews.com: At least three non-government organizations have been found to be espousing the legalization of abortion in the Philippines, as senators resumed floor debates on the controversial “reproductive health” (RH) bill Monday.

LifeNews.com: As debate over the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) Bill continued Wednesday in the Philippine House of Representatives, a co-sponsor of the bill admitted that the RH Bill was a means to control the population size of poor Filipinos in apparent contradiction to statements made by other bill sponsors.

LifeNews.com: As debate over the anti-life Reproductive Health (RH) Bill heats up in the Philippine legislature, a new documentary highlighting the fight for life in the Philippines is set to air on Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). The short documentary film “The Philippines: Preserving a Culture of Life,” produced by Human Life International (HLI) . . .

The Philippine Star: House leaders yesterday assured supporters and critics of the Reproductive Health bill of fair floor debates on the controversial measure.

Religion Clause: This week end, the Philippine Star, the Manila Sun Star, and the Philippine Daily Inquirer are all reporting on disclosures by new management of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office that six Catholic dioceses and another Catholic organization in 2008 and 2009 received the equivalent of over $175,000 (US) from the government-run lottery agency that supports health and general welfare activities.

LifeSiteNews.com: Filipinos have been successful in fighting off a sustained assault from the West in the form of a “Reproductive Health (RH)” bill that threatens the families and future of the Philippines. But the bill’s proponents seem undaunted and incredibly well-funded, so we wanted to help Catholics around the world understand the situation on the ground, and ask for your prayers and support.

AP: After simmering for months, a wide-ranging and acrimonious debate over government-funded access to contraceptives in the Philippines has entered the country’s Congress.

LifeSiteNews: The Catholic Bishops of the Philippines have set May 9 as a “National Day of Prayer” to invoke divine intervention and guidance for legislators to reject a birth control/population control measure.

Inquirer.net: Not all religious organizations are against the reproductive health (RH) bill in Congress. This was the message of the leaders of the Protestant and evangelical Christian Churches on Thursday, as they expressed support for the bill, which is being strongly opposed by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

LifeNews: The controversial “Reproductive Health (RH) Bill” opposed by pro-life groups because it advances a contraception-birth control agenda that could lead to the eventually promotion and advancement of abortion, has failed.

Washington Post: olice said about 40,000 people gathered at Manila’s Rizal Park for the prayer rally led by Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales.

LifeSiteNews: “Catholic leaders in the Philippines are cautiously optimistic after the country’s government appears to have backed off of its hard-line stance on the controversial ‘reproductive health’ bill.”

GMA News: “To come up with a win-win solution on the much-debated reproductive health (RH) bill, President Benigno Simeon Aquino III decided to have his own version and called it the ‘responsible parenthood’ (RP) bill.”

BBC: “A bill has been put forward in the Philippine Congress aimed at making it easier for poor people to get their marriages annulled.”

ABC News: “A foetus has been found in the bathroom of a plane that arrived in the Philippine capital of Manila.”

The Philippine Star: “The European Union (EU) hopes the House of Representatives and the Senate will approve the Reproductive Health (RH) bill despite lawmakers’ pronouncements that the measure is not among the priority legislations in 2011.”

BusinessWorld: “REPRESENTATIVES OF the government and Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) hold today their third in a series of dialogue on reproductive health.”

Manila Times: “Rep. Kaka Bag-ao of Akbayan party-list, the principal author of House Bill 515, or the Act prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity and providing penalties, noted that such homophobia is stirred by the fact that the country has no standing policy on human rights abuses against lesbians, gays bisexual and transgenders (LGBT).”

Christian Science Monitor: “If the bill becomes law, it will give responsibility for family planning to the state. Part of that would include the distribution of free contraception for the poor, maternity care, and family planning. It would also break new ground for the relationship between the government and the Church . . . The Catholic Church, meanwhile, views the bill as an attack on life, Catholic values, and as a gateway to legalizing abortion.”

GMA News: “Even as the Catholic Church prepares for a dialogue with government on reproductive health, a senior archbishop admitted Sunday it may be on a head-on collision with parties seeking the passage of the reproductive health bill.”

Philippine Daily Inquirer: “In pleading not guilty before Manila MTC branch 4 Judge Alfonso Ruiz, Celdran told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he was ‘standing by the fact that he did not say anything offensive’ when he hoisted a placard reading ‘Damaso’ disrupting a September 30 ecumenical service at the Manila Cathedral.” Via Religion Clause.

Christian Science Monitor: “The World Economic Forum released its 2010 Global Gender Gap Report on Tuesday. The report, which indexed 134 countries this year, evaluates how much of the gender gap each country has eliminated through economic opportunity, health access, education, and political empowerment. Below are the 10 countries that have been most successful.”

ABS CBN News: “About 14 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were reportedly among the 100 expatriates arrested during a forbidden religious service in Saudi Arabia.”

Associated Press: “Government prosecutors on Friday charged a popular Manila artist and tour guide with offending Roman Catholics after he disrupted Mass at the capital’s main cathedral to protest the clergy’s opposition to contraception.”

Associated Press: “Aquino broke that customary silence over the weekend during a forum with Filipino Americans while on a trip to the U.S., where he suggested his administration would be willing to distribute contraceptives to poor couples who couldn’t afford it. The Rev. Deogracias Yniguez of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines criticized that stance on Tuesday . . .”

Gulf News: “Philippine President Benigno Aquino III on Monday said the government will start providing contraceptives to poor couples in a bid to control the growth of the country’s population which has ballooned to more than 90 million.”

AP: “The chief government negotiator in peace talks with Muslim rebels on Thursday welcomed a rebel leader’s statement that his group is no longer demanding independence from the Philippines and instead is seeking a status similar to a U.S. state.”

Inquirer.net: “The government has started implementing a new family planning marketing strategy designed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) . . . The US Embassy in Manila has acknowledged Washington’s active role in the Philippine government’s family planning initiatives.”

LifeSiteNews: “Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma of Cagyan de Oro City has strongly criticized a proposed bill that would legalize divorce in the Philippines and said that the move would destroy the moral fiber of Philippine society.”

Associated Press: “Hundreds of Muslim guerrillas have undergone combat training and sought more weapons in the southern Philippines to bolster their military muscle in case planned peace talks with the government falter, a military report said Wednesday.”

ABS-CBN News: “The New York-based Centre for Reproductive Rights issued a report this week saying about 1,000 women died annually in the Philippines after having backstreet abortions.”

Manila Standard Today: “The legal battle over the Education Department’s plan to introduce sex education in public schools is over, at least for now, after Church-based oppositors withdrew their suit Thursday.”

Catholic News Agency: “Despite suffering a legal setback, a group of 30 parents in the Philippines is pushing ahead in its appeal of the country’s implementation of a United Nations-backed sex education program, which is aimed at children as young as nine years old.”

Inquirer: “Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin has filed another version of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill that includes mandated government care for those with HIV and AIDS, as well as those suffering from complications from abortion. Garin’s bill comes a few days after Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman refiled the controversial bill, which calls for government promotion of contraception and sex education despite objections from the Roman Catholic Church.”

Business Mirror: “Concerned parents on Monday went to court to stop the Department of Education from implementing its decision to integrate its reproductive health syllabus into that of both public and private elementary and high schools. They filed the petition in the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City after they found the modules for the program includes introducing ‘non-invasive sexual activities.’”

Inquirer.net: “If government is ready to teach children about sex, shouldn’t it be ready also to teach children about homosexuality so the gay community would no longer be a punch line to a joke?”

AP: “Philippine elementary and high schools will start teaching basic sex education as a pilot program in the conservative Roman Catholic nation, officials said Tuesday, brushing aside concerns by church leaders that it may encourage promiscuity among the youth.”

GMA News: “The Philippines is pressing the international community to forge new agreements against cyber child pornography, a delegation said in a report to the United Nations crime prevention congress in Brazil.”

UPI: “A Manitoba man pleaded guilty to child pornography charges after a woman in the Philippines alerted police to explicit Internet photos, officials said.”

Manila Bulletin: “In a circular, Internet service providers (ISPs) or network providers must now report to the Philippine National Police (PNP) and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) within seven days any form of child pornography being committed using their servers or facilities.”

Amnesty International: “The Commission on Elections in the Philippines had initially refused to recognize Ang Ladlad (in English: Coming Out) as an official political party last November because in the Commission’s view the party tolerated ‘immorality’ and offended both Christians and Muslims.”

Catholic Culture: “Following an April 13 Islamist terrorist attack that destroyed 70% of his cathedral, a Philippine bishop says that he and the other Christians of the city fear for their lives.”

AP: “Muslim militants disguised as policemen and soldiers detonated bombs and opened fire Tuesday in a series of coordinated attacks in a southern Philippine city, triggering clashes that killed at least 12 people . . . ”

GMA News: “Only parents should teach children about sex and reproductive health because the 1987 Constitution says so. This was claimed on Monday by Jo Aurea Imbong, a senatorial candidate of the Ang Kapatiran Party, who has been vocal about her opposition to the controversial reproductive health bill which allows sex education in schools starting Grade 5.”

AP: “The Philippine Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a decision barring a gay rights group from contesting national elections in May and recognized it as a legitimate political party for the first time.”

Washington Post: “On Valentine’s Day, Philippine government health workers hit the streets of Manila to hand out roses and condoms to passers-by. The message was clear in a country with a relatively small but rapidly growing HIV-positive population: Avoid unprotected sex. It didn’t get far. Within days, leaders of the powerful Roman Catholic Church began urging the faithful to reject condoms, reigniting a long-running battle over contraception in the overwhelmingly Catholic nation . . . ”

Inquirer.net: “They came bearing condoms. Members of a workers group Monday brought the condom debate to the doorstep of Catholic bishops, in a bid to convince the prelates that prophylactics protect the health of women.”

Gulf News: “‘Condom advertisements should be banned in television, radio, movies, newspapers, magazines, and public places, as they desensitise youths’ delicate consciences and weaken their moral fibre as future parents,’ [Bishop Nereo Odchimar said.”

Inquirer: “Senator and presidential aspirant Richard Gordon is backing the use of condoms to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, but thinks government has gone overboard by distributing the condoms to target users.”

Spero News (AsiaNews): “The debate over the Reproductive Health Bill is over after four years. Had it been adopted, the draft legislation would have encouraged the use of contraceptives among the population and limited families to two children. Congress ended its session without a consensus. Some 20 congressmen had announced their intention to interpolate on the bill, which would make it impossible to vote on. Any further discussion is postponed until after May elections when a new Congress will sit.”

AP: “A Philippine gay rights group is waging a legal battle to be allowed to run in next year’s polls after the Elections Commission ruled it cannot register as a political party on grounds that it advocates immorality . . . ”

Philippine Information Agency: “The homosexual community received a boost with the organization of the Davao del Norte Gay and Lesbian Federation during a one-day gender and development (GAD) orientation program for gays sponsored by the Provincial Government.”

Phillipine Daily Inquirer: “Insisting on their religious and academic freedoms, Catholic educational institutions are seeking exemption from a provision in the new Magna Carta of Women banning the dismissal of unwed mothers from employment or school.”

Bess Twiston-Davies writes at Faith Central (Times Online): “A native of the Philippines, Cenzon-DeCarlo says: ‘I emigrated to this country in the belief that here religious freedom is sacred. Doctors and nurses shouldn’t be forced to abandon their beliefs and participate in abortion in order to keep their jobs.’”

LifeNews: “The head of the delegation of the European Commission in the Philippines, Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, has vocally intervened in a contentious legislative debate in that nation, pushing legislators to pass a controversial “reproductive health” bill while linking increased foreign aid to passage, according to critics.”

ABS-CBN News: “A total of 50.7 percent of married women in the Philippines use traditional or modern contraceptives to plan their families, the National Statistics Office revealed Monday.”

IRIN Asia: Concerns are growing that the global economic slump, which is causing increased joblessness, could see an increase in human trafficking, said specialists.

Jonathan Adams, writing in the Christian Science Monitor: The battle over a ground-breaking reproductive health bill is heating up in the Philippines, a country where the influential Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to artificial birth control has long held sway. A …

More than 100 members of the House of Representatives have co-authored a bill that would allow government funds to be used to promote artificial contraceptives — which is now prohibited in the Southeast Asian nation.

LifeSiteNews: “A radical, feminist-inspired ‘gender mainstreaming’ bill has been voted out of the Philippine Senate and is now before the Bicameral Conference Committee, which will likely meet next week in order to reconcile the upper and lower house versions of …

The Philippines’ influential Catholic bishops on Friday attacked a new a bill promoting family planning in the Philippines, calling for drastic changes before it is passed into law.

CWA reports: “n their attempt to globalize their anti-life agenda, International Planned Parenthood, along with other international pro-abortion groups like the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), has fixed its sights on the Philippines. The Filipino legislature is contemplating a comprehensive …

In U.S. v. Seljan 2008 WL 4661700 (9th Cir. Oct. 23, 2008), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the conviction of John W. Seljan “for multiple offenses primarily involving sexual misconduct with young children in the Philippines.”

The AP reports: “The Philippine Supreme Court threw out on Tuesday a proposed accord to grant minority Muslims expanded autonomy after Christian protests and renewed fighting convinced the government to abandon the deal.”

Archbishop Paciano B. Aniceto, a prominent bishop from the Philippines, on Thursday said he is confident the country’s lawmakers will not pass a “reproductive health” bill that recommends a “two-child policy” and funding sterilizations and contraceptive distribution.

LifeSiteNews.com reports: “The Philippine Court of Appeals recently rejected claims made by a radical pro-abortion group based in New York. The court dismissed an effort seeking to overturn an executive order promoting natural family planning.  The petition was filed earlier …

CNA reports: “Thousands of Catholics in two southern Philippines cities on Monday demonstrated against a government agreement granting Muslims more territory and political and economic powers.”

The Bill is overtly about state intervention into people’s private lives by strongly promoting contraception and its enforced provision, state run sex education with potential undermining of parental influence, and denying conscientious objection.

The Manila Times reports: The Supreme Court on Monday stopped the government from signing a peace agreement with Muslim separatist insurgents in southern Philippines, in another apparent setback to efforts to end nearly four decades of rebellion there. A temporary …