The battle over reproductive health continues in the Philippines where the fifth legislative attempt to pass a Reproductive Health (RH) Bill will be presented before the Congressional Committee of Population and Family Relations on 24 November.

The bill proposes national funding for, and access to, reproductive health care services and products like birth control pills and condoms and would become the first national family planning law in the Philippines.

Supporters of the bill have said that population growth in the Philippines should not be ignored.

Congressman Edcel Lagman, a principle author of the RH bill, told IRIN:  ’The Philippine population is growing at a much faster rate than can be sustained by the government or the country’s resources. We are the only country in Southeast Asia with no national reproductive health bill in place.’

According to the University of the Philippines, the country has the highest fertility rate in Southeast Asia at 3.3 percent and also has the highest population growth rate at 2 percent.

It is the second most populous country in the region, falling behind only Indonesia with 92 million people. According to the National Statistical Co-ordination Board, almost 33 million people (32.9% of population) in the Philippines live on less than a dollar a day.

The Catholic Church however are strongly opposed to the bill, considering all modern forms of contraception abortifacient and have dismissed population growth as grounds for a new law.

But legislator and bill co-author Juan Miguel Zubiri describes a cycle where population spawns poverty: “Our problem is simple. Too many Filipinos have made many more babies than they can take care of.”

In Church homilies, priests have called legislators like Zubiri, Lagman and other reproductive health supporters “immoral” and “lacking in conscience”.

In response, a group of campaigners, led by the NGO Filipino Freethinkers, which promotes secularism, is hosting an “ex-communication party” on 26 November.

“The CBCP [Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines] threatens to ex-communicate politicians who support the RH bill. They [pro-RH legislators] are willing to risk being excommunicated from the church; so are we,” said the group’s president, Ryan Tani, adding: “We are tired of the political and religious bullying of the Catholic Church.”

Read more on the IRIN website.