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President Gloria Arroyo and Roman Catholic bishops met Wednesday
night in Malacañang and discussed reproductive-health issues, not
the controversial expanded value-added tax (E-VAT), Press Secretary
Jesus Dureza said.
He said at least four senior bishops attended
the meeting over dinner at the Palace, along with Health Secretary
Francisco Duque 3rd and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman.
Dureza said the meeting took up a
reproductive-health bill pending in Congress.
The bishops had sought the meeting with
President Arroyo to express their position on the bill, Dureza said,
quoting Presidential Adviser on Religious Affairs Nena Valdes.
They have long opposed artificial means of birth
control despite what experts call a population explosion in
predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines. Filipinos now number close
to 90 million. According to the experts, the apparently unchecked
increase in birth rate hampers, in part, the country’s economic
growth.
Present at the meeting were Cebu Archbishop
Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, Tuguegarao Archbishop Diosdado Talamayan and
Bayombong Bishop Ramon Villena.
Those in the hour-long meeting agreed that the
bishops will subsequently hold a dialogue directly with members of
Congress headed by House Speaker Prospero Nograles to expound on the
bishops’ stand on the bill, Dureza said.
He said the participants agreed to hold future
“expanded” dialogues with other lawmakers.
It was unclear if Mrs. Arroyo would hold a
separate meeting with the bishops to explain the government’s
stand on the E-VAT and the Oil Deregulation Law.
In a statement released Wednesday, Malacañang
said the President’s meeting with the bishops will tackle the tax
on oil and other economic issues. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference
of the Philippines on Monday called for the lifting of the E-VAT and
a review of the deregulation law.
-- Angelo S. Samonte
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