It's all about the money

Everybody knew it all along. It's all about the money. They don't care about the population. Contraceptives are all about the money.

Church hits ‘foreign funding’ for birth control bill

MANILA, May 23, 2009—The Roman Catholic Church hierarchy is taking offense at the foreign intervention for a more aggressive population control program in the country.
Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, Commission on Family and Life head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), tagged the “resurgence” of international funding agencies as “unethical”.

He cited the following: the US-AID, the European Commission, Australia’s Agency for International Development and even Agencia Espańola de Cooperacion Internacional of Spain.
The funding goes to the maternal health and population management program, a multilateral-funded program in several decades after the government’s suspension of more active population control programs due the pressure of the Catholic Church.

According to the archbishop, these agencies are also key players in pressuring lawmakers to pass a controversial “reproductive health” bill while linking increased aid to its passage.
“Unmindful of the already sharply decreasing rate of population growth in the Philippines after 39 years of unrelenting and well funded population control programs, still these international birth control groups foist upon our country their agenda for population reduction to a level that courts national peril,” he said.

Aniceto said billions of pesos have been committed and earmarked for release in the coming months, whereby funds will continue to be channeled to local government units and NGOs.
At a UN meeting on population decline, the Philippines was listed among 74 countries as "intermediate-level fertility." The meeting noted that if current trends persisted, those countries were expected to reach below replacement fertility levels.

The prelate said developments will threaten economic security in such countries with the first impact being felt in health and welfare systems.

He lamented that hefty funding which should be spent for authentic maternal, infant and child care, basic hygienic systems and measures are instead poured into contraceptives and birth control devices.

“Is this good for economic development?” asked Aniceto.
Foreign funding agencies claimed they are concerned with the fast growth rate of the Philippine population.

With this scenario, funding agencies believe it will be difficult for the government to address poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth unless an effective population management program is implemented.

The head of the delegation of the European Commission in the Philippines, Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, reportedly has intervened in a contentions legislative debate, pushing Filipino lawmakers to pass the RH bill.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to promote the Reproductive Health Care Act of 2008 in Manila recently, MacDonald chided the legislators for failing to pass the bill.

He called the “provision of effective and accessible” reproductive health services “a responsibility of the State towards the people of the Philippines.”
Australia-AID and Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, the global aid agency of Spain's socialist government also called for passage of the bill at the UNFPA forum. (Roy Lagarde)