INQUIRER Global Nation

Despite the gravity of the financial crisis that is currently spooking the United States and many countries around the world, the Philippines included, the top plenary agenda of the House of Representatives is House Bill 5043, better known as the Reproductive Health Bill of 2008.

Rep. Roilo Golez lamented the legislative priority saying that instead of focusing on the financial turmoil and its effect on the local economy, Congress is more preoccupied by the population control measure. It’s as if the significance of the United States financial debacle that had governments around the world virtually huddle around Bloomberg updates is routine economic bump.

Like Humpty Dumpty, venerable names in Wall Street are falling down as a result of the debacle in the subprime mortgage market. One of them is Lehman Brothers, a company with assets of $46 billion but was suddenly left with just $145 million. The investment bank’s peak stock price was at $82 per share, but before the bankruptcy notice was filed, its share price was just worth 21 cents. Lehman’s financial freefall is threatening many others in its corporate wake.

The Bank of China’s total exposure in Lehman is said to be over US$128 million. Three large banks in Israel have invested at least $254 million. A Japanese firm reportedly plunked more than ¥11 billion ($112.5 million) in the investment bank. The shock waves are likewise felt in Europe, where many financial houses like Swiss Life, Swiss Re have exposures in hundreds of million euros. Meanwhile, the sum owed by Lehman to seven Philippine banks is $386 million. When a bank goes bankrupt it can only mean that what it owes is deemed unrecoverable.

At the end of the day, US taxpayers will bear the brunt of the Wall Street debacle. US President George Bush has asked Congress for federal funds totaling $700 billion to bail out the American Insurance Group and a host of investment banks but some observers say that since the worst is yet to come for the American financial system, Federal Reserve funds of $1 trillion may not even be enough. In fact, Professor Nouriel Roubini of the New York University, who correctly predicted the bloody bankruptcies of US financial firms Fannie and Freddie Mac in 2006, looked at the series of events and the knee-jerk reaction of the US government in bailing out errant Wall Street players this way: “It might be the beginning of the end of the American empire.”

Early this week, teachers’ organizations urged the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Social Security System (SSS) to categorically declare whether the insurance agencies had placed the workers’ savings in Lehman. The workers’ distress is understandable since the state insurance agencies are mere custodians of the workers’ lifetime savings. What if SSS and GSIS invested the workers’ nest egg in Lehman?

But apparently Congress is not moved and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman cannot be distracted from his objective: the passage of a population measure, which according to him will bring about a better life for Filipino families. Supporters of the bill are pushing for low population and equate family planning methods with better health and prosperity. It’s a neat explanation because if you consider that one needs more money to raise two kids instead of one, but the population measure is not as simple as arithmetic.

US government agencies like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) used to allot $17 million annually for contraceptives since 1970. Under the Bush administration, the funding was pared down to $3 million until it was completely phased out in 2007. I find it interesting that the Philippine Legislator Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD) worked with International Planned Parenthood and the UN Population Fund in the creation of this legislation, that’s according to Zenit news. The aim is to decrease HIV/AIDS diseases but the end game is to depopulate the country through all possible means. The UN fund has appropriated $26 million to the Philippines for this purpose.

Since the US scrapped funding for population programs, the purpose of the reproductive health bill is, quite simply, for government to invest in family planning commodities. This will happen by making tubal ligation, vasectomy, intrauterine device insertion and other family planning methods available at all government hospitals. If the RH bill is passed, government resources will be allotted in the procurement of hormonal contraceptives, intrauterine devices, injectibles and other medical preparations under the title of “essential medicines.” These commodities will become accessible in all government clinics and hospitals all over the country. I will not comment on what Archbishop Oscar Cruz wrote in his blog that multinational firms engaged in the manufacture of contraceptives are behind the measure.

And Representative Golez is puzzled why Congress is prioritizing the RH bill?