Links on Population Policy/Reproductive Health Bill

Here is the bill itself. There might be a more permanent link, but i couldnt find it.

From the above source, here is additional commentary against it.

I’m thinking about the one of the main arguments of the SPUC — the bill is dangerous because it introduces reproductive rights into Philippine law. A legal challenge would mean clarification from the courts, which might induce a move to legalize abortion.

Is this a legitimate argument? I’d like to see some case studies in other countries  that support the contention that the mere use of ‘reproductive rights’ will necessarily lead toward abortion. In a conversation w Prof M, he said (and i agree) that in countries where abortion is, it always follows contraception. But does it flow the other way? Does contraception always lead to abortion? I have my doubts.

More scientific testimony, by Emma Roxas, Society of Catholic Social Scientists. The science is interesting, and in a sense, has more evidence than the UP Econ document.

Regarding economic growth, it must be said that roxas doesn’t include much more recent work than Kuznets in 1966. I am not familiar with the UN document in 1992. Mankiw etal test the Solow growth model in 1994(?). Population growth rates is negative related to per capita income and growth rates. I’m not a growth scholar, but i think population and per-capita income/growth is a shut case. (I’ll ask my more knowledgeable peers tho).

She also mentions Lant pritchett’s work. This is fascinating to me. Basicaly, pritchett says that desired fertility is a very good preditor for actual fertility. Also, unwanted children and family planning efforts don’t do much to actual fertility rates.

This is supposedly an argument that large families comes from the desire/demand for large families, so if the idea is that people have an unmet need for contraceptive is false. [the paper is gated, but available in JSTOR]

But it basically means that contraceptives have no effect on unwanted births means that family planning programs are ineffective in achieving their goals, assuming the goal is to lower unwanted pregnancies alone.

I actually find this a bit persuasive — the only class i took that discussed demographic issues was a class on the industrial revolution. Total fertility rates declined during the industrial revolution in london to modern levels, without any formal program.

If family planning fails to do so, then i find the opposition to it strange.

She then goes to the medical and philosophical arguments. Her medical position has no evidence, and i wish she had a few studies to follow up on. She says contraceptives have side effects. Studies? Also, all drugs and interventions have side-effects. What is important is to gauge the likelihood of such problems. If is behind say, 1000 cases of cancer, this is still tiny compared to the millions of people using the drug. (We can calculate via Baye’s Theorem what the probabilty of cancer conditional on using contraceptives if we had other probabilities).

Her philosophical arguments suffer also. Consider this excerpt:

An observation of the nature of man, will show that man is not the “owner” of his own life.  Observe that at one point, he does not exist; then at another point, he begins to exist. Then, at some later point in his life, he ceases to exist.  Note that in the points when he begins to exist and ceases to exist, man does not exercise any volition or willing whatsoever.  He enters this world without him having a say on it and he leaves this world, without him willing it.

These truths point to one thing only.  That man does not have a say so in the beginning and ebbing of his own life.  Life is clearly not a province he can decide upon.  He can always try to extend his life by medical help or seek the bowels of the earth to prolong his stay on it.  But all of these grand efforts are of naught because his life is not really up to him.  He has to go, when he has to go, as dictated  by the Giver and Creator of life itself, and this can never be postponed.

While its true we cant determine whether we are born (whether we die is another matter), that doesn’t have anything to do with contraception? (assuming that the egg and sperm are not yet people)

She also mentions the church’s argument that sex is for procreation:

Now,  when man decides that he only wants the enjoyment of the marital act but not the consequences thereof, he is committing a grave wrong because the marital act was designed purposely by the Creator for the begetting of children.  Sexual intercourse, even with one’s legitimate spouse is a grave moral wrong if it is not open to life.

I need not mention the criticisms against this position, but the basic outline is that moral law/natural can be interpreted in several ways.

She ends with a not-so-subtle put down to the other side:

In the course of history, many men and women transgressed the moral norms governing the exercise of the marital act. They cannot quietly dispel the qualms of conscience that they have experienced in their transgression, so they decided to make their own rules to justify their failings.  They concocted ideas like “sexual liberation”,  “freedom to choose what they want to do with their bodies”, “reproductive health”, “gender equality”, etc.  all of which simply mean that they do not want to toe the line of Natural Law in the matter of their sexuality.  Simply put, it is actually putting one over the Creator in a matter that only He has absolute authority over – and this is LIFE.

Interesting take, although obviously this is an interpretation that choice people will disagree with.

Bugador

Interesting docu from Howie Severino. Check it out for how reform is carried out … More power to Gov!

KC and Richard — whose genius idea was that?

Evidence of Intelligent life… Interesting video of how KC and Richard got together for “For the First Time”.  It seems that they figured it out themselves. Smart Kids…

Edit! — There seems to be a rift between the parents, and the other GMA7 pair (at least their management). Dingdong and Marian. This is unfortunate, because i think this sort of synergy, free trade between the assets of these networks, is wealth creating. Or, it may in fact be fortunate, coz any publicity is good publicity, which in showbusiness is also wealth creating.

Arlyn’s Inside Story

Great article by Arlyn dela Cruz, herself a kidnap victim. She details her involvement in this most recent kidnapping, and her relationship with Ces Drilon.

Pinoy TV rant: No Heroes

No i don’t mean the TV show “Heroes”, i mean there are no characters in Philippine TV that succeed because of wit, daring, intelligence, or grace. Why is that? Is there no demand for these kinds of heroes? all we’ve got are super heroes. The problem w superheroes is that they never make mistakes, or aren’t really affected by them.

Kidney Donor Pools

An interesting article in abs-cbn online news on the doctor’s reaction to new DOH kidney donation rules. This is my comment:

the article on the kidney donation does not clearly lay out how the kidney specialists plan will help. The problem is that the pool of potential donors is tainted by donors who lie to be eligible for transplantation. but the kidney specialists’ plan is to restrict transplants (generally? or to foreigners– this too is unclear). Setting aside the issue of non-compliance by hospitals (mentioned in the article), how will a successful restriction

a)help the people who need kidneys,

b) help improve the quality of the donor pool?

Update: I found this nice link on kidney sales in Iran. Regarding poor donor pool, its important to align incentives. From the study:

If the long-term outcomes of organ vendors are formally included as a moral and financial responsibility of the vending system, then market forces will minimize costs by selecting a vendor population with the lowest risk…

Agreed. Make the system pay for post op care, and buyers will be more careful about who the ‘vendors’ are. This will restrict the number of operations to those foreigners that can afford it (kinda like what the DOH proposal is all about anyways), but it will go a long way towards solving the moral hazard in this market.

Confused by CBCP

Whats up with CBCP? In a news bit from MSN i hear:

Roman Catholic bishops in the Philippines warned President Gloria Arroyo on Monday against granting a pardon to nine military officers convicted of mounting a failed coup five years ago.

The defence establishment on Sunday urged Arroyo to grant presidential clemency to the nine junior officers, who received heavy jail terms earlier this month after they pleaded guilty and apologised to the Filipino people.

“The government will not win any brownie points here because the public is not in favour of it,” said Rodolfo Diamante, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference’s episcopal commission on prison pastoral care.

So the government shouldn’t pardon soldiers because ‘the public isn’t in favour of it’? I’m confused because i didn’t know the church based moral decisions on its popularity (or lack thereof). Shouldn’t forgiveness be based on fundamental moral reasons, especially if your name is the Catholic Church? Who cares about brownie points?

What ever happened to consistency?

For example, I can understand how and why the church would be against contraception — because its against it on principle. Whether or not people are in favor is a separate matter (important, but in theory separate). Now the church is playing the popularity card, which tells me that the CBCP uses arguments based on whether it supports some kind of agenda (whatever that agenda is, which includes a hardline stance against coup plotters and women)

My Big Love

I thought that My Big Love is one of the weaker Sam-Toni rom-coms because most of the acting weight here rests squarely on Sam’s well-defined, yet unsure, shoulders. I’m not sure its entirely his fault, and i’ve complained about this before — we need to see a character arc, and we are frequently robbed of it. Instead they substitute a kilig factor. I don’t mind this ‘kilig’ factor, but i think there is a missed opportunity here.

The key idea of a fat guy romantic comedy is that there is a huge correlation between being fat and being insecure. According to the model in our heads, being insecure is the factor that prevents us from enjoying unalloyed happiness; yet insecurity is an unobserved variable. Being fat is easily observable (to say the least!). The movie is then a social science experiment — change the fat dummy, and find out what happens to the romantic success variable. Usually, most movies show that it is the unobserved, excluded variable that makes the difference. The lead character figures this out in time, of course.

There is another missed opportunity here — cooking and exercise as opposing yet ultimately complementary forces. Cooking is entwined with eating, the abuse of which leads to obesity (at least in the model of ourselves where its behavior and lack of effort that leads to obesity, not genetic/deterministic factors).  They could’ve used cooking as another character in the movie — i.e. its something that gives sam’s character passion, and individuality – critical elements in the process of falling in love. Its never clear why she does fall for him; except of course for the inerrant law of kilig that makes their pairing predetermined. [For this, see Kerri Russel in "Waitress"]. 

Last, there is a tightrope that fat guy movies must walk. On the one hand, they acknowledge that physical differences matter. On the other, it don’t matter enough to distort romantic outcomes (i.e. if you are really in love, physical differences don’t matter to a committed relationship). There is a contradiction in here somewhere, and a good movie tosses much of this aside — but a GREAT movie puts this tension front and center.

On an barely related point, my high school classmate edited the movie. I expect to see more of this sort of thing; people that i know will eventually start being famous in their own right as my generation gets older. My friend told me last night that most of her friends’ disposable income has risen fast — we can only expect that to continue indefinitely as our diverse eduation and career choices start to exhibit ever increasing income wedges. But still, it pleases me to know end that good people become good at what they do. More selfishly, mik (the editor) has always been kind to me.

Equivalent Variation in OFWs

In a very interesting study by the nice folks at Scalabrini Migration Center….

Median Monthly salary required to make Migrants Stay in the country lies in 20,000 to 29,999 thousand range.

The respondents of the survey attendees of the POEA’s predeparture orientation seminar. 83% female and half are single; median is 30 to 34 years old; 60% from Luzon and almost half have college degrees (27% have HS or less). The survey was done in 2004.

Was there an arrest? Yes. Were they charged? No.

This is the most awesome part of her essay and testimony. Ms. Ressa continues:

“…Why was there an apology? Because all of us feel bad about the way the incident materialized. We are unhappy that our friends in media had to suffer inconvenience.”

She intimates that this is a trivialization of the constitutional provision of freedom of the press.

An apology means that something unmeant happened.  I don’t know what exactly he’s apologizing for. The long drive to camp bagong diwa? The confiscated materials not being returned promptly? Was the DILG Sec apologizing for censorship?

I don’t know what to make of this apology. Does it have anything to do with the SOPs that Ms. Ressa raised? All this apologizing strikes me as strange and it shows that we (as a society) don’t know how to manage the tension between the press and public safety. This is something on which i agree with Ms. Ressa. The relationship should be managed and protocol set.