STATEMENT OF SEN. MIRIAM DEFENSOR SANTIAGO
ON THE BUDGET CUT ON REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SERVICES

When I am president, I shall work to fully and conscientiously implement the Reproductive Health Law.

I am therefore appalled at the cut on reproductive health allocations in the 2016 budget. It is irreconcilable that Congress, which enacted the RH Law after much hardship in 2012, would three years later render that same law inutile. The P1-billion budget cut threatens to deprive some seven million women of reproductive health services. This abandonment is immoral in a country where some 200 out of 100,000 women who give birth die.

The enemies of reproductive health never sleep. We, too, must not rest in fighting for women's health.