Transcript of press briefing with Senator Rodolfo G Biazon

Stand on Abortion - Especially the Catholic church needs to have an exchange with the advocates because a lot of misconceptions as to what is being proposed exists, for example we advocates for reproductive health and family planning ARE NOT PROPOSING FOR THE ADOPTION AS PART OF THAT POLICY. ABORTION IS A CRIME UNDER OUR LAWS AND IT IS AGAINST OUR RELIGION.

The issue of abortion has something to do with a correct definition of the beginnings of life. When human intervention is introduced to end life once life has begun, then you are committing in my mind, abortion.

But if you are preventing the union of the elements of life from the man and the woman, you are not committing abortion.. the need for the adoption for a family planning policy is needed for obvious reasons - economy, carrying capacity of our land, nature.. etc we are now 90 Million we will hit 100 Million by 2013, we give birth to more than 2 Million babies every year� per record and studies of the UP, there are more than 400,000 cases of abortion committed every year, and the main reason for this crime, is because of unwanted pregnancies and unplanned families.

If we want to reduce that number of underground abortion numbering almost half a million, we should adopt a policy which includes a program for education and information for planning, a program of services made available to our people so they will not resort to what we are trying to avoid which is abortion..

Since there is a need to clarify issues, I am supporting GMA for a dialogue between the two sides.

On Northrail - There is a need for the Phil Govt not only the Administration but also the Legislature to study the potential development of the contracted project.

Which of the two options - the option of continuing or the option of terminating the contract will give us the least of losses. We already have acc to the contract, paid the contractor a certain amount, including a fine that we were paying - P66,000 per day of delay of the project.

We need to determine not only in terms of the funds to be expended but the effect to our economic life - meaning the transport of goods and people to some parts of Luzon to Manila and back.

In the contract it provided that should there be a dispute between the Phil govt and the contractor, the legal resolution will be in a Chinese court, under Chinese laws..not under Philippine court or Philippine laws..so we have to input that into the equation.. this is not just a responsibility of the Executive.. the Legislature has a share of responsibility on this. I think our legal minds in government should study whether we can refer this to the International Court of Justice, definitely we can not resolve this in Philippine courts, because the Chinese contracting parties will not agree.