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Monday, July 24, 2006
Editorials: Imok’s War
Make war, not love. The sentiment is not even the most unconventional thing about Felicisimo “Imok” Rupinta, barangay chief of Ermita.
During general assemblies, he calls out the names of couples who have more than six children, pressing them to name a date so he can accompany them to Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center for vasectomy, or a clinic for tubal ligation.
He dips into his pocket to shoulder the P200 ligation fee. About five women every week seek his help to have their fallopian tubes tied to prevent pregnancy. When infection occurs, he shoulders the cost of medicine.
To date, he has helped 17 males have vasectomies, a record for Ermita where the barakos (lechers) have never heard of self-denial (“dili pa balibad; motongtong man gyud”).
In a field of controversy that has many politicians left cowed and mute by the influential Roman Catholic Church and its pro-life advocacy, Rupinta stands out.
He has publicly clashed with priests, one of whom refused to hold mass in the barangay until he was transferred. While he respects the Church’s mission to save souls, Rupinta says the Church-sponsored once-a-week feeding with porridge will hardly prevent Ermita’s children from turning later to a life of crime in the absence of sustained support.
Not having more than the children one can raise is more Christian, he believes.
Baby boom
For the last six years, Barangay Ermita has maintained a 2.1 percent population growth rate, which Rupinta traces to the public advocacy of birth control pursued in the late ’90s.
Yet he has only to look at the two groaning Kaohsiung buses transporting about 200 Ermita youngsters to the City Central School every day to note that, “wala nitubo ang yuta, ang mga tawo ra (it’s only population exploding but the land remains the same).” Many more children have to walk for lack of bus space.
For this reason, Rupinta perseveres with his 5-minute campaign every morning with neighbors Junior and Marit, formerly of Bohol. For five years now, Rupinta has been unable to convince Junior to allow his wife Marit to have a tubal ligation. The 45-year-old recently gave birth to their 15th child.
Rupinta often kids Junior about his “mega” family, which he supports through his earnings as a kargador (porter) of vegetables and other goods at the nearby Carbon market. But beneath the banter, the barangay leader has never been more serious.
He advocates family planning for the women’s sake: “sila gyud ang moantos, panganak, patotoy, kogos (from giving birth to nursing, the women bear the burden of raising their children).”
Savvy to the hearts and hormones of his constituents, Rupinta knows who makes the family decisions: the husbands.
Men rule
Junior’s bull-headed machismo is typical in Ermita where, Rupinta says, poverty, lack of education, and low aspirations whets, instead of douses, ardor. Sex is perceived to be the only “free” recreation, as implied by such local witticisms as “tongtong usa tulog (sex before sleeping)” and “katkat usa Carbon (sex before working at dawn).”
Rupinta advocates sterilization as many misconceptions block the use of other methods. Believing that condoms repress their enjoyment (“walay lami”), many men give away the condoms for their children to blow up and play with. Methods requiring self-control, like withdrawal and rhythm, are rarely resorted to because the men will sooner batter their women than be denied sex.
Fears about the side effects of vasectomy and ligation - from turning men into sex maniacs and philanderers to dampening women’s ardor - are exploited by the men to retain the upperhand in sexual politics. Without economic independence, the women defer rights to their bodies and their children to husbands and partners who may not think beyond self-gratification.
Twin will
Educating men and women about their responsibilities to the family requires good governance. Ermita is among the few pilot areas where the local government works with people’s associations and non-government organizations to promote family planning (FP) and reproductive health.
The Cebu City United Vendors Association (CCUVA), a member of Ermita’s 12-member women’s federation, pioneers the family planning chat groups organized by the Metro Cebu Community Advocacy Network.
With the Remedios Aids Foundation Inc., CCUVA also trains out-of-school youths to become advocates of adolescent reproductive health. Rupinta attests that younger educated couples regularly use contraception and see barangay health workers for FP counseling.
Since contraceptive assistance from the United States Agency for International Development is phasing out, Rupinta says the barangay supports the drive for contraceptive self-reliance. The Barangay Council has appropriated P100,000 of its funds for FP activities in 2006. By next year, Ermita will sell condoms at cost.
Rupinta hopes that education will in time make Ermita couples more family-friendly-those who will put self-control and birth spacing as much a priority as food, education and other basics for their children. Only then perhaps will Rupinta give up “Imok’s war” against unprotected love.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 24, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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