MANILA, August 14, 2012?After having previously taken the middle ground in the RH Bill debates, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV finally said he is decidedly and categorically against the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill.
“It will really not be good,” Trillanes was quoted to have said, just hours after Sen. Vicente Sotto III’s privilege speech on Senate Bill 2865 yesterday.
He added, the “noisy people” think that everyone is in agreement over the bill, but this is not the case.
Trillanes said he found the provisions on sex education especially objectionable despite the inclusion of values formation in the curriculum.
The senator went so far as to call the inclusion of values education in the proposed sex ed “baloney”.
Several youth organizations and other pro-life groups trooped to the Senate on August 13 to show their support for anti-RH lawmakers and Senator Sotto who took the floor for his 'turno en contra' on the RH Bill.
He said the teaching of sex ed in schools could even encourage sexual harassment and abuse that could be done under the guise of “teaching about sex.”
Trillanes gave the scenario that perverted teachers could ask their students, for example, to undress, saying that this will be done in the context of sex education.
He challenged RH Bill proponents whether they would be able to monitor for example, public schools in far-flung areas like Zamboanga, Sibugay to make sure no scenarios like this would happen.
He also expressed concerns over the appropriateness of teaching grade 5 students how to use condoms and other family planning methods, as well as the skill and capacity of public school teachers to give sex ed.
Trillanes said the bill contains a lot of “fine print” that requires a closer look.
He added, the common generalization people make about the RH bill is that if you do not want poverty, automatically, you have to support the bill.
Sen. Sotto will be giving the second part of his turno en contra on the RH Bill today, August 14. [Nirva’ana Ella Delacruz]
