Aide: Arroyo to highlight natural family planning in SONA

This is why we need to OUST GLORIA NOW!!!


Aide: Arroyo to highlight natural family planning in SONA

By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 19:48:00 07/25/2008

MANILA, Philippines -- Unmoved by calls to review her population policy, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will highlight her preference for natural family planning in her State of the Nation Address (SONA), a Palace official said Friday.

"She will restate her position, she is consistent in her policy," Presidential Management Staff chief Cerge Remonde said at a news briefing in Malacañang.

A number of Cabinet officials, particularly Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral, have urged the government to adopt what they describe as a more responsive population management policy, including the promotion of artificial birth control methods, rather than sticking to the natural family planning, the method the Catholic church is the only acceptable one, to curb the swelling population,

On Friday, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a US-based benefactor of population management programs that include artificial methods, criticized the Arroyo government for backing the church position on reproductive health.

Congress is deliberating on a reproductive health bill that would include the use of artificial birth control.

Remonde said while Arroyo is prepared to listen to all views on the issue, she is standing pat on her position, even if it is "difficult and unpopular."