I think that the women’s movement would be the first to claim that the determination, patience, and parliamentary skills of Edcel Lagman were an indispensable ingredient in the formula for the RH law's victory
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This essay is not a eulogy but a fond recollection of a time I found myself fighting under a skilled legislative commander. I was privileged to work closely with Edcel as he led the fight to enact three laws: CARPER or the law to extend agrarian reform in the 14Congress; and the Compensation of Martial Law Victims Act during the 16Congress.
The provisional vote count in both the Senate and the House favored the bill, but, instructed by the bishops, the anti-RH legislators resorted to delaying tactics, including repeated, long interpellations or the threat of a quorum call to prevent the bill from coming to a vote or, if that should fail, to push the vote as closely as possible to the 2013 elections in order to make pro-RH legislators waver in the face of the Church hierarchy’s threat to turn voters against them at the polls.
The fast and loose use of statistics marked the arguments of anti-RH advocates, along with really outrageous claims, like the assertion that condom use in Thailand caused the spread of AIDS. Or that the RH Bill was part of a US plot “to keep down the population of developing countries” — the so-called Kissinger doctrine. Or that it was all part of a conspiracy of the big foreign pharmaceutical companies to expand the local market for artificial contraceptives.
Poor respondents, by a large majority, favored access to government-provided or -facilitated family planning methods, including condoms, pills, and other methods of contraception. Effective family planning was a central element in any strategy to promote development and reduce poverty.
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