By Fel V. Maragay

SENATOR Jamby Madrigal has caved in to pressure from what she once called “right-wing Catholic forces” and agreed to change birth-control provisions in the proposed Magna Carta for Women that is now pending in a congressional conference committee.

But Senator Rodolfo Biazon said the Senate would not dump the provision ordering the use of artificial contraceptives in its version of the reproductive health bill despite objections from the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.

Previously, Madrigal, chairman of the committee on youth, women and family relations, resisted attempts of Catholic forces to water down the Magna Carta for Women, a measure that has been pending in Congress for the past seven years.

But after the bill was approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives and brought to the bicameral conference committee, Madrigal received a strongly worded letter from the CBCP reiterating the Church’s objections to the bill, forcing her to have a change of heart.

“With the letter of the CBCP in hand, we proceeded to cure the infirmities pointed out, and we would like to reassure the country that the Magna Carta for Women is merely intended to empower women, especially the marginalized,” Madrigal said, referring to a meeting of the bicameral panel on Tuesday.

The bishops’ main objections were similar to those articulated by Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., who said the bill was replete with provisions that were “constitutionally infirm, factually deformed and ambiguously asserted.”

Pimentel questioned a provision in the Magna Carta over “access to information and services relating to women’s health,” which carries the phrase “management of abortion.”

Madrigal said she had given a strong message to the House that she would not allow other lawmakers to insert reproductive health provisions in the Magna Carta, and that she advised them “to fight their own battle and not to compromise” its passage.

Biazon said his panel would finalize the Senate’s version of the reproductive health bill with or without the participation of the CBCP, whose members walked out of a Senate hearing last week after sensing that their efforts to scrap birth-control provisions would be useless.

“The government is not forcing couples to use contraceptives. They are given information, but it is up to them to make a choice,” Biazon said in a radio interview.

“If they cannot afford to have more children, the government should find the means to make these methods accessible to them.”

Biazon said the Senate gave the CBCP the opportunity to present its proposals, and that some of them were accepted.

He said it was the Catholic bishops’ duty to defend the Church’s position on family planning, but it should respect the state’s duty in issues like population management.

The government could not ignore the sentiment of more than 60 percent of Filipinos favoring the use of artificial contraceptives, Biazon said, adding he would present the completed draft of the bill and deliver the sponsorship speech before Congress adjourned on March 7.