Weeping Sotto recalls death of first son in speech vs RH bill

By: Karl John C. Reyes, InterAksyon.com
August 13, 2012 6:09 PM

MANILA, Philippines – Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, taking the floor for a speech against the RH bill, on Monday stunned the chamber with a revelation, which ended in tears, that he lost his first son, aged 5 months, for unexplained medical reasons, other than, supposedly, that his his wife Helen had used contraceptives.

In his turno en contra, Sotto said that he opposed the passage of the bill not only because he had intellectually deliberated on its merits as is his duty as senator, but also because of his own personal experience.

His first son, named Vincent Paul, was conceived even while wife Helen Gamboa, a noted actress, had heeded a doctor’s advice to use contraceptive pills, Sotto recalled. The boy was born 37 years ago but was never able to leave the hospital. He said he visited the boy at the nursery every day, but - this is where he  started crying - never got the chance to touch him, except when he died.

He blamed the prescribed contraceptives for his son's death.

“Namatay ang anak ko: ang dahilan, paggamit ng contraceptive. He was born and died with a weak heart, 37 years ago, on August 13, 1975. That is why my opposition to the passage of this bill is not only professional, but also personal,” he said.

His second son Gian is a Quezon City councilor. He and Helen have three daughters, but Sotto said it’s “actually four, including the wife of Sen. Kiko Pangilinan [referring to TV5 host Sharon Cuneta, Helen’s niece who has always called Helen her second mother].”

When Vincent Paul died, Sotto said he asked God why he lost the first son he had loved, but he never had answers since then. Now, he believes it is his mission to expose the alleged dangers of contraceptives.

Sotto was supposed to deliver his speech as scheduled on August 6, but this was cancelled as torrential rains flooded most parts of Metro Manila and Luzon, and the speech was re-scheduled on Monday, August 13.

Turno en Contra

In the first part of his 4-part turno en contra speech, Sotto urged his colleagues to reject the measure, because it is “not necessary, not beneficial and not practical,” and “won’t serve the common good.”

He lamented that “distorted statistics” have found their way into the arguments for the RH bill, and said he will cite them as he goes along.

He said the RH bill, renamed Responsible Parenthood bill by the Aquino administration, “violated Philippine sovereignty, the Constitution and existing laws.”

It is detrimental to the health of the pregnant mother, puts the life of the unborn on the line, violates financial independence and local autonomy, and transgresses Filipino culture and family values, he added.

Noting the 1987 Charter “equally protects the lives of the mother and the unborn from conception,” he drew attention to proceedings in the Constitutional Commission that drafted it, where the crafters discussed the concept of when life begins and agreed that a fertilized ovum is alive.

Western advocates of birth control, he added, had twisted the meaning of  when life begins, from conception (when the sperm fertilizes an egg or ovum) to implantation (when the fertilized ovum is attached to the womb), and this accounts for much of the heated arguments ever since. Such shift in meaning was resorted to in order to sidestep arguments about the birth-control drugs or devices being abortifacients, he added.

 “I strongly believe that Senate Bill 2865 is not necessary, not beneficial and not practical for our people. It will not serve the common good and, therefore, should be rejected. Deceptive information, as well as unreliable and distorted statistics, have found their way into the arguments of the RH bill,” he said.

Sotto cited the book entitled “Deadly Deception” by James Sedlak, which recalls  that to avoid arguments on the issue of whether or not contraceptives are abortifacients, in the late 1960s the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and its affiliates got some medical associations to define a pregnancy as beginning at implantation and not conception.

Then his arguments went back to the deliberation of Article 2 of the Constitution where a second question raised was: Is the alive fertilized ovum, human? “Again the answer is a categorical yes.  Genetics gives an equally strong ‘yes.’ At the moment of conception, the nuclei of the ovum and the sperm rupture. As this happens 23 chromosomes from the ovum combine with 23 chromosomes of the sperm to form a total of 46 chromosomes. A chromosome count of 46 is found only—and I repeat, only—in a human being. Therefore, the fertilized ovum is a human being.”

He also cited opinion from biological and neonatal experts on the beginning of human life, which he quotes:  “Individual human life begins at conception and is progressive, ongoing continuum until natural death. This is a fact so well established that no intellectually honest physician in full command of modern medical knowledge would dare to deny it. There is no authority in medicine or biology who can be cited to refute this concept. “

 “Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite, a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition,” said Sotto, quoting  E.L. Potter, M.D., and J.M. Craig, M.D. “Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant,” 3rd Edition. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975.

Sotto said,  Dr. Oscar Tinio, president of the Philippine Medical Association (PMA), has stated that “life begins at fertilization” and anything that prevents the fertilized ovum from being implanted in the uterus is already considered “abortive”.