STUDENTS PUSH FOR RH VOTE

Some 3,000 students of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Muntinlupa pledged thru social media, to urge Congress to vote on the Reproductive Health bill, after 10 years of legislative debates.

The students vowed to use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media at an assembly sponsored by the Forum for Family Planning and Development featuring Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, author of the RH bill.

Santiago was welcomed to Muntinlupa by Mayor Eldrin San Pedro, who was one of the special guests of the university.

The campus pledge was led by student leaders Gio Tingson, national chair of the Student Council Alliance of the Philippines, and commissioner-at-large of the National Youth Commission; Migs Angeles of the Coalition for Students' Rights and Welfare; Roby Camagong, president of the Alyansang Tapat sa Lasallista; Hazel Perez of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Muntinlupa; J.C. Tejano, chair of the CSSP Student Council of the University of the Philippines-Diliman; and Juven Navarro, President of the Political Science Society of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Muntinlupa.

Santiago was accompanied at the symposium by multi-awarded actress Heart Evangelista, who is an RH advocate.

"Tapusin na natin ito!" Santiago said during her speech, provoking a standing ovation from the students.

The student leaders said that they are out to prove the so-called youth vote, and to disprove the so-called Catholic vote.

While Santiago said that the RH bill is basically a freedom of information bill for indigent parents, the student leaders said the RH bill is a bill intended for their generation, because they will reap its benefits.

Santiago said that critics have successfully delayed the debate on the RH bill, which until now is stacked in the period of interpellation.

"Normally, the period of interpellation is followed by the period of amendments. So we shall try to file a motion to move to the period of amendments, after which voting will follow," she said.

Student leaders decried the "delaying tactics" of certain senators who have reached far-ranging questions, including questions on the composition of contraceptive pills.