Free speech and RH

At Large By Rina Jimenez-David Philippine Daily Inquirer

I must have led a blameless life, I quipped to my companions as we stood outside the Pasay City Hall of Justice Wednesday afternoon. For the first time in my life, I was going to enter a court room and experience a court hearing, and what do you know, the case involved an issue concerning reproductive healthand free speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion, even.

The case involved a petition for a temporary restraining order against the Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health Rights being held at the Philippine International Convention Center (today, Friday, is the last day).

In the petition filed by Pro-Life Philippines Foundation Inc., it was alleged that if the conference, which involves about 1,500 participants from all over the Asia and Pacific region, including the Philippines, would be allowed to push through, it would result in offenses against decency, good customs and public policy.

The petitioners zeroed in on two workshops that were to take place yesterday: one on Womens Right to Safe Abortion Services, and another on Access to Medical Abortion. As the counsel from Pro-Life insisted, because abortion is illegal in our statutes, holding such workshops is likewise illegal in this country, much less in a government-owned (PICC is owned and managed by the central bank) facility.

The petition, let me point out, was filed on the eve of the conferences opening, and if the TRO had been granted, it would have led to the padlocking of the PICC premises, and, to my mind, the blackening of the image of the Philippines not just to the numerous foreign delegates, but to the whole world, laying to waste our Department of Tourisms drive to promote conference tourism.

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Though initially fazed, the conference organizers decided to fight the petition in court and contacted friends in the legal profession to come to their defense.

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