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What’s the Happiest Country in the World? Not the United States (via NewsFeed)
I have heard about the Happiness Index and all sorts of study regarding people’s happiness indicators. This one does not seem to quite make sense- the wealthy countries on top and the poorer countries below. It has always showed that poor countries are also on the top when it comes to “happiness” measure- a way of showing that money does not seem to buy all the happiness.
Well, I guessed it right. TIME’s title seems quite misleading. The study by Gallup used the Cantril Scale which is a type of wellbeing assessment. Gallup’s study explored how people perceive their wellbeing and was compared to people’s perception from other countries. No wonder the Philippines and other developing nations are somewhere in the bottom. I repeat: this is not a happiness study.
via NewsFeed
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What's the Happiest Country in the World? Not the United States (via NewsFeed)
I have heard about the Happiness Index and all sorts of study regarding people’s happiness indicators. This one does not seem to quite make sense- the wealthy countries on top and the poorer countries below. It has always showed that poor countries are also on the top when it comes to “happiness” measure- a way of showing that money does not seem to buy all the happiness.
Well, I guessed it right. TIME’s title seems quite misleading. The study by Gallup used the Cantril Scale which is a type of wellbeing assessment. Gallup’s study explored how people perceive their wellbeing and was compared to people’s perception from other countries. No wonder the Philippines and other developing nations are somewhere in the bottom. I repeat: this is not a happiness study.
via NewsFeed
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Reproductive Health Package
The Reproductive Health (RH) bill is controversial in the Philippines due to the strong objection from the Roman Catholic Church. In a recent survey by Pulse Asia, it showed that 69% of Filipinos are in favour of it. The claimed awareness regarding the bill was 80%. With the amount of publicity it is getting, it is believable that many are aware of this intriguing bill. As to the depth of awareness, is another question. Hence, to a certain extent, I must say that the result demonstrate the reality- most Filipinos tend to favour the bill based on how much they are aware of. This is obvious because the bill had been described to provide better healthcare for women and manage population growth. Generally, no one would disagree with these ideas.
So what’s the fuzz about?
More than just a law, reproductive health is a euphemism used globally to refer to a package of healthcare bill related to reproduction. It was officially defined in the International Conference on Population Development (ICPD) in 1994 as: “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and…not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and its functions and processes. Reproductive health therefore implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability
to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this last condition are the right of men and women to be informed [about] and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice, as well as other methods of birth control which are not against the law, and the right of access to appropriate health-care services that will enable women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth and provide couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant.” It also emphasized that this does not include the promotion of abortion as a method of family planning. While this was perhaps emphasized due to pressure from pro-life lobbyists, an article in vidahumana.org observed that “all that has happened since then was the progressive interpretation of reproductive health’ so as to include abortion in it via old and safe abortion argument.” Hillary Clinton, one popular advocate was quoted defining this: “…if we’re talking about maternal health, you cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion.” (http://reproductiverights.org/en/feature/clinton-to-canada-abortion-access-must-be-included-in-g8-initiative)
The RH Bill is intended to provide access through government funding as well as those from agencies such as International Planned Parenthood Federation, a pro-choice organization advocating access to contraception and safe abortion services.
Deny it or not, reproductive health is a package. No matter how clear in Philippine constitution the protection of the unborn is- the proponents of reproductive health clearly has its own agenda- to promote contraception and then abortion. If not in practice, at least in principle for now.
Currently, even attempts to change the bill name is on the way if only to change this connotation. It may sound like a matter of semantics to define RH than understand the spirit of the program. But this is exactly the point. The “spirit” from which the program was built was to promote the reproductive health agenda. No, this bill will not lead to legalization of abortion for now. It is bound to create the reproductive health culture. This may even be worse.
With this premise to begin with, I oppose the RH bill.
Rob A Minute! 