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But then again, what’s new? Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) may be a pathological liar, clearly a fraudulent president, a human rights violator, but she is an economist, one that got her education in the West at that. In short, she knows the economic perils of an exponential population growth and the burden it imposes on government resources. She knows, too, the strategic benefit of increasing access to reproductive health in terms of healthcare access for women and, ironically, in reducing cases abortion.

Why, then, this position? It is not devoutness, although she has claimed that God spoke directly to her to urge her to run during the last presidential elections (A curious Vatican gift to the Philippines. God is known to be partisan in the Philippines, and he has always made it a point to pick several candidates during elections). Her position is political - she doesn’t want to offend the talibans in the Catholic hierarchy, whose support has always been crucial for her political survival. One could not separate her position from the repeated refusal of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines to call for her resignation, impeachment or ouster.

What unites the position of the Catholic hierarchy and GMA’s is fraud and fundamentalism. CBCP has anchored its anti-abortion campaign on the Reproductive Health Bill despite the fact that the bill does not legalize abortion. The truth is, it would take more than an act of Congress to legalize abortion in the country: a constitutional provision that requires the State to “protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn from conception” is popularly interpreted to be a de facto ban on abortion.

The Church uses the Filipino Catholic’s sense of sin on abortion to target artificial contraceptives, the promotion of which is encouraged under the Reproductive Health Bill. It is a clever lie and to give the claim a semblance of logic, the Church equates the use of condoms and other artificial contraceptives to abortion. I’m pretty sure that Bishop Dosdado’s next pastoral letter would be about declaring the earth as the center of the universe.

The Church said that there is no space for debate on this matter, a fundamentalist streak that it shares with GMA. It reminds me, too, of the fascist frailes - the likes of Padre Damaso - the same fire-and-brimstone priests who purposively denied Filipinos access to Spanish, the imperial language, in order to keep their control over the country. By refusing to debate on this so-called pro-abortion bill and on artificial contraceptives, the Church wants to keep Filipinos ignorant.

One needs to go to Quiapo to see how the Church alienates itself from its flock with its position on abortion. Surrounding the historic Quiapo Church (yes, the same Church of Black Nazarene) and scattered all over Plaza Miranda are stalls selling leaves and concoctions that supposedly have abortive effects. It is a thriving industry that betrays a fact that so-called compassionate bishops have chosen to disregard: unsafe abortion is happening and is taking the lives of thousands of Filipino women precisely because of ignorance.

There’s no stopping sex, period. And if the Church is serious about stopping abortion, then it should allow couples to use the contraceptive they deem effective. The use of condoms is the first step towards eliminating abortion.

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