Friday, October 17, 2008 Councilors clash on family planning
LAPU-LAPU City’s lone minority councilor clashed with his administration colleagues yesterday over the Department of Health’s (DOH) family planning program.
Councilor Efren Herrera described as anti-life a proposal that sought to give the City Government P406,000 a year as augmentation fund for its family planning programs.
Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Arturo Radaza has requested the council for a resolution to authorize him to sign a memorandum of agreement with the DOH for its Grant Facility Execution Program.
DOH offered the program only to “performing LGUs” or those with family planning programs beginning 2005, the year the health agency stopped funding it and shifted its focus to the Early Child Development Program.
In Cebu, only the cities of Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu have been selected to receive the augmentation fund. Lapu-Lapu had spent P600,000 a year for its own family planning program.
Money for contraceptives
DOH allows the use of the money to buy contraceptives and emphasizes the conduct of an information campaign by holding seminars for parents that will also include the Church-preferred natural method of birth control.
“As a Catholic, I go against it because it is against the teaching of the church and is therefore anti-life,” Herrera said in yesterday’s session.
Herrera and Vice Mayor Mario Amores are past grand knights of the Catholic Church-based organization Knights of Columbus in Lapu-Lapu City. Other councilors who are members of the organization are Damian Gomez, Eduardo Cuizon and Junard Chan.
Gomez said he could not understand Herrera’s opposition to the MOA when family planning programs have long been adopted worldwide.
“You do not have a monopoly on faith here. I too am a member of the Knights of Columbus and am pro-life and this MOA promotes the preservation of life,” Gomez told Herrera in the middle of their argument.
Assistant City Attorney Michael Dignos, who represented the mayor in yesterday’s session, said the program is advantageous to the city because it will no longer have to spend for family planning projects. He said family planning is the mandate of DOH and not of LGUs.
With Herrera’s opposition, Councilor Cornelio Pahang, the majority leader and author of the resolution, moved for a vote on the measure. It was approved with 11 affirmative votes, including that of Sangguniang Kabataan Chairman Reymar Dico. (AIV)
