PALANCA, Jenard Jake P.

RZL110-A15
REYES, Ivan Ross M. 6/1/2020
Prof. Janet Clemente Exercise 1 - CO1

From the 20th century up to now, the Catholic Church has been obstructing the
acts of the government. The Philippine law makers are often scrutinized by the Church
because of the measures of the certain laws that are invented. The RH bill and Rizal
Law are some examples that the catholic church is really against.

Most citizens may not be aware of this but amidst all the benefits of the RH bill,
there are far more drawbacks than the advantages it may bring to the table. The specific
law mandates access to contraception, fertility control, sexual ed and maternal care to
everyone. According to the Catholic Church, “Contraception is corruption,” because it is
an intentional execution of ceasing potential life, in other words, abortion. Additionally,
the bill aims to provide free information and health care services to Filipinos to enable
them to plan their families to the size they want. There is no coercion, no bounds to the
number of children a family can have, no population targets. Due to this, it may
encourage people to engage in premarital sex because they are complacent with the
support they will receive from the government. According to the statistics of the Youth
Commissioner of the Philippine Commission on Women, an average of 600 births a day
are recorded under teenage mothers. The list goes on and on but provided with the
mere fact that the RH bill allows contraception of life and may cause adultery already
disobeys a much bigger law, the Law of God. Now, it explains why the Catholic Church
opposed the RH bill.

Similarly, the Rizal law, also contrasted and opposed by the Church because of
the books of Rizal, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, claims that it would violate
the freedom of conscience and religion. With this, owing to the anti-clerical themes in
Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo, the measure was firmly opposed by the Roman
Catholic Church in the Philippines. In the past Noli Me Tangere has been banned
because it reveals the revolt and wakes up the call to every Filipino against the filthy
Spaniards who brought the Roman Catholic religion to the Philippines. In the fight
against the Rizal bill before, the Catholic Church urged its members to write their
opposition to the bill to their congressmen and senators; later, it held academic
conferences. It was mentioned in one of the conferences held that the novels belonged
to the past, argued Father Jesus Cavanna, and teaching them would misrepresent
current conditions. Rizal law violates the right of the Catholic to conscience and religion,
and intriguingly, in the same manner of rationale that they employed to dispute the RH
bill. Additionally, Claro Recto, who was the primary vindicator of the Rizal Bill,
desiderated to subsidize the bill in Congress. However, this was emulated by the
obstruction of the Catholic Church. During the 1955 Senate election, the church
charged Recto as a communist and an anti-Catholic.

SOURCES:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizal_Law#History
https://opinion.inquirer.net/5636/rizal-and-rh
https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/jos%C3%A9-rizal