Fight Night, May 8: HARAPAN RH Bill

Attention fellow heathens, blasphemers, filibusters, fornicators, teroristas, and Nazis of all colors! If you don’t have any plans for this Sunday evening, you might want to take a look at ABS-CBN’s upcoming HARAPAN debate:

(Re-posted with permission from The Nightingale Chronicles)

HARAPAN
RH Bill: Ipasa o Ibasura?
The Grand Debate
May 8, 2011/Sunday/9:15pm – 11pm

Debate Moderators:

  • Julius Babao
  • Karen Davila

Venue:

PDA Hall or Studio 6 (ABS-CBN Compound)

Opening Statements ng Pro-RH at Anti-RH – 2mins each
Ano ang RH Bill? 3 Malalaking isyu sa bill

___________________________________________

Issue 1: Saan ba nagsisimula ang buhay? (When does life begin?)
Debate Proper I

Anti-RH

  • Fr. Melvin Castro
  • Dr. Ligaya Acosta
  • Couples for Christ (CFC) representative

Pro-RH

  • Protestant Bishop Rodrigo Tano
  • Dr. Esperanza Cabral
  • Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) representative

Poll Partial Results (Online & Text)

___________________________________________

Issue 2: Responsible Parenthood, Overpopulation, State Intervention, and Contraception
Debate Proper II

Anti-RH

  • Rep. Anthony Golez
  • Rep. Roilo Golez
  • Joey Lina

Pro-RH

  • Rep. Edcel Lagman
  • Rep. Janette Garin
  • Carlos Celdran

Fast Facts or Poll Partial Results (Online & Text)

___________________________________________

Issues 3: Sex Education, Access/Right to Information, Women’s Rights
Debate Proper III

Anti-RH

  • Atty. Jo Imbong
  • Christine Jacob Sandejas

Pro-RH

  • Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel
  • Beth Angsioco

___________________________________________

CONCLUSION: Summary of points raised
FINAL TALLY OF PULSO NG BAYAN (online & text surveys)

If it were a matter of brute strength, our side has that in spades ,with speakers like Ms. Baraquel, Ms. Angsioco, Mr. Celdran, and Dr. Cabral offering their collective ass-kicking rhetoric to defend the bill. It’s beauty and brains, muscle and finesse, all rolled into one deadly combination!

On the other hand, the opposition is also worth a look. Will Dr. Acosta befuddle us once again with  those unorthodox, mind-numbing tactics she’s become notorious for in previous bouts?

Will Golez whips his trademark rope-a-dope strategy to  wear down the opposition? What the man doesn’t have in technical finesse or instinct, he makes up for with experience and tenacity.

And of course, remember to participate in the polls – the Anti-RH bloc just loves to brag about how they’ve got the winning team. A good pharngulating of ABS-CBN’s polls should let them know otherwise.

43 comments

  1. tapos pag na pass ang RH bill talakayin ang corruption? ang galing mo dre. palakpakan naman dyan.
    o bobo ka kaya ? dami dyan bill ang dapat ipasa yung wala pang kwenta. at sayang lang din. bakit may ipin ba ang batas natin? RH bill or no RH bill parehas lang. yan. sayang lang ang panahon at pera ang gastusin dyan. Sa dami ng namamatay sa sakit, aksidente at sakuna baka maubos na tayo?. kung ipasa yan. lahat ng nga na perks binigay ng singapore sa mga tao nila dumami tayo naman gusto magbabawas pa. baka pagtanda mo sa home for the aged ka dahil yung dalawa mong anak wala ng oras sayo. sabagay baka pagdating dyan makakuha tayo ng katulong mag alaga sayo na taga indonesia. o africa o ayos di sosyal ang dating kaysa anak mo mag alaga sayo.

  2. Guys, you know who's pathetic? This guy from that 'TheVincentonPost' blog site. This guy who calls himself 'aristogeek' who is really actually the blog author, and sock-puppet of 'froivinber' –oh yes, I caught him with his pants down. He responded as 'aristogeek', but was answering for 'froivinber'. So, LOL at that retard who still denies they aren't one and the same!

    Imagine, this is his dumb-assed style: We debate the RH Bill, I show him to be an ass, then he deletes my comments that do just that to make his followers (or sock-puppets) think he's actually winning the debate. Then he leaves his own responses at the end to make it seem like I was unable to answer them! What kind of moron deletes the winning arguments of his opponent at his own blogsite to mitigate the embarrassment he's just been handed!?

    How moronic, eh?

    I should say that he's being unfair in what he's doing, but hell, that's his blog. If he wants to show people he's a sore loser, then all the best to him.

    • hehe, yan ang problema sa hakot-crowd… walang staying power.
      obvious naman na kaya lang mas madami ang anti-rh nung una kasi ni-announce na sa lahat ng homilies at pro-life meetings nila na mag mass-voting sila.

      Ilang surveys pa ba ang kailangang gawin para maging obvious na majority votes ang RH?

  3. nilampaso naman kayong mga pro RH sa debate eh…the debaters made their points clear. The anti RH bill has all the data to refute the RB bill.

    • They have indeed all tha data…. All tha fake data!

      Congratulations to tha anti-rh debaters! They successfully brought deception and stupidity to whole new levels!

  4. The Catholic Church always get in to trouble by putting their beliefs over Governments decision. I quote: Luke 20:22-25 22 "Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no? 23"But he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? 24 "Show me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's." 25 " And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's."
    THIS IS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!! If this is the case. I SUGGEST THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH SHOULD ALSO PAY THEIR TAXES OF THEIR ASSESTS AND INCOME THEY'RE GETTING FROM THERE MEMBERS AND PATRONAGE!!! Pero, I don't think makikialam sila diyan…pakikialaman lng nila ang ibang mga usapin wag lng ang kanilang yaman! Pera na yan…LOL

  5. I SUPPORT RH….PLS PASS THE BILL!!!! Don't mind the Catholics! Mga KSP lang sila. I heard that Catholic is saying they will adopt families and help mothers and parents on their needs if they can't afford to raise their children. Narinig nyo yun? Can they adopt all the children on the streets, illagal settlers and families na halos walang makain? I don't think they can. I have so much questions about these sect. 98% of the senate, 98% members of the congress,98% of the schools,universities and 98% of the population in the Philippines are Catholic. But why is it they can't decipline their members not to commit pre-marital sex? Kulang bah sa sermon ang Pare?Or sadyang Di lng nila ma disiplina ang kanilang meyembro. Because……………………..
    I quote this from
    Matthew 15:14 "Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

  6. The Catholic Church always get in to trouble by putting their beliefs over Governments decision. I quote: Luke 20:22-25 22 "Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no? 23"But he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye me? 24 "Show me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's." 25 " And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's." THIS IS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!!
    If this is the case. I SUGGEST THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH SHOULD ALSO PAY THEIR TAXES OF THEIR ASSESTS AND INCOME THEY'RE GETTING FROM THERE MEMBERS AND PATRONAGE!!! Pero, I don't think makikialam sila diyan…pakikialaman lng nila ang ibang mga usapin wag lng ang kanilang yaman! Pera na yan…LOL

  7. Watched the Harapan debate and was disappointed why Red pulled out a spurious CRR figure claiming that there are 560,000 abortions in the Philippines. This data is not properly footnoted or verfied. Using spurious data for effect is I think un-freethinkerlike. Hwag naman bara-bara pre. Not really very nice, to be honest 🙂

    • @ernie
      [Using spurious data for effect is I think un-freethinkerlike. Hwag naman bara-bara pre. Not really very nice, to be honest ]

      *Ahem* http://reproductiverights.org/en/forsakenlives

      "The Philippines is one of the few countries in the world to criminalize abortion in all circumstances with no clear exceptions.

      As a consequence, women in the Philippines continue to die or suffer grave complications from unsafe abortion procedures, producing a massive and unnecessary public health crisis and violating the fundamental human rights of Filipino women.

      Despite the criminal ban, in 2008 alone, an estimated 560,000 induced abortions took place in the Philippines; 90,000 women sought treatment for complications and 1,000 women died. "

      My dear boy, if ignorance is bliss, then that means you're enjoying 10 orgasms per second.

    • must be good to be anti-RH as opposed to being a freethinker then. No expectations for them to be intellectually honest at all. No citations? no footnotes? no problem! You can take it on faith.

      sometimes I envy the fantasy world they live in where the laws of physics and economics simply don't apply because you can simply pray for everything you need to support a dozen babies with no job and no house.

  8. Dr. Sylvia Estrada-Claudio should be commended for underscoring two points in the first panel debate in spite of the limited time allotted each debater:

    (1)There is no scientific consensus on the question “when does (human) life begin?”, but all societies seriously concerned with reproductive health have invariably deliberated the question as a social issue rather than as a religious sectarian issue. At present, four different theories provide contrasting answers to the question, namely: (i) life begins when the fertilized ovum is implanted in the uterus; (ii) life starts at the stage of cellular division whereby either a single individual emerges or more than one individual takes form; (iii) life emerges upon the moment the zygote develops the neural networks that enable it to feel; and (iv) life begins at the moment the infant is born. Brevity perhaps barred Dr. Claudio from elaborating on the main reason for the lack of scientific consensus: THE QUESTION IS UNSCIENTIFIC, BECAUSE ITS UNSTATED PREMISE OF “CONCEPTION” (THE CREATION OF A SOUL UPON FERTILIZATION) LACKS SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE AND BECAUSE LIFE PRECEDES BOTH CARNAL INTERCOURSE AND FERTILIZATION. SINCE VIRTUALLY EVERY CELL IN OUR BODIES IS “HUMAN”, ALL NON-PROCREATIVE SEXUAL ACTS. INCLUDING THOSE BETWEEN SPOUSES THAT INVOLVE CHURCH-APPROVED “NATURAL” BIRTH CONTROL METHODS, WOULD CONSTITUTE EITHER MASS MURDER OR MASS HOMICIDE.

    (2)The Roman Catholic Church seeks to foist its own religious doctrines on the Filipino people, ignoring Filipinos of a different worldview and refusing to engage them in an intellectually honest and polite debate where claims are held to the same logical and evidentiary standards. While the Roman Catholic Church impugns the morality of RH advocates, it has often changed its position on moral questions according its earthly interests in conflict with the moral immutability that it claims for itself. Historical records show that the Roman Catholic Church’s most eminent philosopher Thomas Aquinas and the 16th century Pope Gregory XIV approved of abortion in the early stages of pregnancy on the belief that male and female fetuses acquired souls respectively 40 days and 80 days after conception. Anti-RH clergymen selectively invoke doctrines and official documents to intimidate Catholic medical practitioners and patients who subscribe to artificial methods of birth control with threats of excommunication.

    The 2nd panel debate is disappointing. RH proponents and RH opponents talked pass each other in the debate. Opponents of RH simply dismissed statistics that show a correlation between high population growth rate and sluggish economic growth that consistently lags behind birth rates in the Philippines. Instead, they introduced comparative data on population density, to “prove” (i) that our country is in fact sparsely populated compared to some economically advanced states; (ii) that high population growth rates in cities is due mainly to high out-migration rates from provinces; and (iii) that high population density is the main contributor to economic growth.

    RH proponents in the second panel debate dismiss (particularly Congressman Edcel Lagman) population density in highlighting the significance of population growth rates and the cost-benefit merits of reproductive technologies, when they could have easily strengthened the case for RH by highlighting two points:

    (1)Cross-national comparisons of population data in support of or in opposition to the RH bill are meaningless unless they are informed by objectively verifiable indicators of per capita economic growth, human development, societal health, factor endowments and ecological carrying capacity. The argument that the most developed countries/regions are also the most densely populated ones and that their superior status must be due to their vast number of residents is both a logical fallacy and a factual error.

    (2)The fact that chronic poverty could arise from factors not directly related to overpopulation such as flawed economic policies, corruption and iniquitous politico-economic structures does not weaken the case for RH. Though RH is not a panacea for the country’s problems, it should be an integral component of the country’s development policy regardless of whether it finds itself densely populated or sparsely populated. Since there is and will always remain a significant time lag between pregnancy/birth and recuperation on the part of parents, as well as between birth and acquisition of socially functional and productive skills on the part of the young, society cannot dispense with an overarching RH-population policy framework and leave every citizen to his or her own devices with respect to sexual heath, parenthood, birth-spacing, means of birth control and so forth. Beset as it is with a high birth rate, low economic growth, chronic mass poverty, skewed asset and income distribution, as well as severely damaged ecological systems, the Philippines is obviously in dire need of a coherent and effective RH-population management policy.

    I never completed the 3rd panel debate on sex education due to the brownout, but the impression that I got from the anti-RH camp is that they fear a publicly funded sex education that is science-informed, guided by democratic values and free from religious sectarian interference, to which they’ve become accustomed.

    • Regarding the third panel – right on the money, actually.

      The pro-Life side was basically raising concerns about how the sex ed program would not provide for values education

    • I SUPPORT RH….PLS PASS THE BILL!!!! Don't mind the Catholics! Mga KSP lang sila. I heard that Catholic is saying they will adopt families and help mothers and parents on their needs if they can't afford to raise their children. Narinig nyo yun? Can they adopt all the children on the streets, illagal settlers and families na halos walang makain? I don't think they can. I have so much questions about these sect. 98% of the senate, 98% members of the congress,98% of the schools,universities and 98% of the population in the Philippines are Catholic. But why is it they can't decipline their members not to commit pre-marital sex? Kulang bah sa sermon ang Pare?Or sadyang Di lng nila ma disiplina ang kanilang meyembro.
      Because…………………….. I quote this from
      Matthew 15:14
      "Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

  9. O AYAN, NILAMPASO ANG MGA PRO-RH SA GRAND DEBATE… IPASA AND RH BILL=34.62% IBASURA ANG RH BILL=65.38. WAWA NMN ANG MGA PRO RH!

    • Not everything is a trial by publicity. My question to you is this: How many of the anti-RH people who voted have actually read the bill, and understand the situation of RP with regard to maternal health?

    • Im guessing people didn't see the update:
      Ipasa 63.78%
      Ibasura 36.22%

      I would like to say wawa naman. but that is beneath me and you really don't deserve anyone's pity.

      • nung live broadcast poll, gagastos sila para maka-vote. magkano kaya sinayang ng anti-rh para lang maka-vote? sana pinambili na lang ng pagkain para sa mga nagugutom na bata sa lansangan.

        ayaw gumastos para sa condom pero ok lang gumastos mag-text, anubakayo mga anti-RH people??? ang lalabo nyo talaga. buti pa mga pro-RH, nag vote online pag libre na, mas practical tayo e

  10. Im here in America watching the debate in regards to this,Mr Lina is saying that corruption is the reason why Phils. is so poor. He and the other congressman are all in the politics for so long,have they done anything about corruption or they are part of it.RH bill should be passed,

  11. Im here in America watching the debate in regards to this,Mr Lina is saying that corruption is the reason why Phils. is so poor. He and the other congressman are all in the politics for so long,have they done anything about corruption or they are part of it.RH bill should be passed,
    emil

    • [Im here in America watching the debate in regards to this,Mr Lina is saying that corruption is the reason why Phils. is so poor. ]

      Technically, that means he's part of the problem then 😀

    • Anti RH won the initially then a reversal a few days later.
      Pro-RH is leading for now 64% to Anti's 36%

      I'm guessing working class was getting some reast. Cmon Sunday 11pm! most people have better things to do.happy it the turn out is favorable to those with common sense.

  12. some arguments of Lagman and Golez are off-tangent on the main issues ….and very evident is the integration of their political interests. Its safe to say that RH Bill is purely politics!!!!

  13. If I declare myself a Filipino Catholic who's against the RH Bill in this comment, and I actually am, there's no doubt I'll get a reply that would go something like “Poor you, and your stupid religion with all your misguided beliefs and medieval thinking.”

    For a society that promotes reason and logic, the amount and intensity of unreasonable, profane statements here are alarming. Whatever happened to “cool heads at the service of warm hearts”? Don't deny that most of you freethinkers always jump to the conclusion that if a person believes in God, that person is misguided and incapable of sound judgment. People in the Pro-RH camp are just as guilty of generalization and other logical errors as the Anti-RH guys. (I refuse to use the Pro-Life and Pro-Choice labels.) Fine, to be precise, Pro-RH people just might be less guilty of it than the Anti-RH camp, but that doesn't absolve them of the sin. [Go on, face-palm at my choice of words.]

    I admit that the Catholic Church in this country has made terribly unsound arguments in standing up against the bill, but don't ever think it is incapable of otherwise. It is in the nature of the Church to be conservative, but it would be extremely irrational to hastily conclude that it never changes, that it is still guilty of the crimes it has committed in the past, that it can never make rational judgments. It is a human organization, after all. And, no, just because the foundation of the Church is belief in God doesn't mean that the entire system is stupid.

    I'm pretty sure you'll be attacking that last statement, but come on. You should know that that's part of an entirely different debate that's stifled by the unassailable fact that logic and rationality have their limits. Let's leave it at that, at least for now.

    As for the RH Bill itself, here's a comment.

    The main issue is that the bill is too much of an issue. It tries to tackle so much, and that's why the debate and controversy are bogging it down. The best way to move forward with the issue is to break it down the bill into smaller, more manageable issues, because the parts that aren't really controversial are suffering. It's already so tiring to hear the Anti-RH debater argue on how IUDs are abortifacient only to be 'answered' by the Pro-RH representative with a statement that the bill is in fact pro-life because it improves maternal health. Tiring not necessarily because either one is wrong, but because they're not tackling the same issues. Go on and pass some Maternal Health Bill, or Birth Control Education Bill, because if you look at it, no one's seriously going against those rarely-talked-about but still important provisions of the bill. (This is not my idea. This was proposed by a reactor, a political science major, at an RH Bill forum I attended last March.)

  14. whatever it is, lets think in broader scope! do you really think that PINOY's are really that responsible to properly impose this bill?? don't think taking into account of yourself!

    I say so, it's a BIG NO!

  15. Fuck Joey Lina! the same guy who made the give-house and lots to the squatters, author of the Lina Law!?

    This is going to be a mind-fuck

  16. First debate topic is making me go palm my face. Gah. And the panels on both sides are composed mainly of theists. Gah…

      • Hmm. That is actually a whole lot more relevant. Cabral may possibly have something intelligent to bring to the discussion given her background as a DOH Secretary but still.

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