[6] Starting in 1967, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) began shouldering 80% of the total family planning commodities (contraceptives) of the country, which amounted to $3 million annually.

It recommended the U.S. leadership to "influence national leaders" and that "improved world-wide support for population-related efforts should be sought through increased emphasis on mass media and other population education and motivation programs by the UN, USIA, and USAID.

[3] The Corazon Aquino administration focused on giving couples the right to have the number of children they prefer, while Fidel V. Ramos shifted from population control to management.

"[9] Although abortion is recognized as illegal and punishable by law, the bill states that "the government shall ensure that all women needing care for post-abortion complications shall be treated and counseled in a humane, non-judgmental and compassionate manner".

They are also obliged to monitor pregnant working employees among their workforce and ensure they are provided paid half-day prenatal medical leaves for each month of the pregnancy period that they are employed.

[9] Any person or public official who prohibits or restricts the delivery of legal and medically safe reproductive health care services will be meted penalty by imprisonment or a fine.

According to these economists, which include Solita Monsod, Gerardo Sicat, Cayetano Paderanga, Ernesto M. Pernia, and Stella Alabastro-Quimbo, "rapid population growth and high fertility rates, especially among the poor, do exacerbate poverty and make it harder for the government to address it", while at the same time clarifying that it would be "extreme" to view "population growth as the principal cause of poverty that would justify the government resorting to draconian and coercive measures to deal with the problem (e.g., denial of basic services and subsidies to families with more than two children)".

[10] At the national level, fertility reduction cuts the cost of social services with fewer people attending school or seeking medical care and as demand eases for housing, transportation, jobs, water, food, and other natural resources.

The millions of funds intended for the contraceptive devices may just well be applied in improving the skills of our health workers in reducing maternal and child mortality in the Philippines".

Thus the UP economists "strongly and unequivocally support" the thrust of the bill to enable "couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information and means to carry out their decisions".

[37][38] Proponents argue that research by the Guttmacher Institute, involved in advancing international reproductive health, reveals that the use of contraceptives can reduce abortion rates by 85%.

Proponents such as 14 Ateneo de Manila University professors, argued thus: "Studies show that the majority of women who go for an abortion are married or in a consensual union (91%), the mother of three or more children (57%), and poor (68%) (Juarez, Cabigon, and Singh 2005).

When women who had attempted an abortion were asked their reasons for doing so, their top three responses were: they could not afford the economic cost of raising another child (72%); their pregnancy occurred too soon after the last one (57%); and they already have enough children (54%).

We are thus deeply disturbed and saddened by calls made by some members of the Catholic Church to reject a proposed legislation that promises to improve the wellbeing of Filipino families, especially the lives of women, children, adolescents, and the poor".

They emphasized that the bill "promotes quality of life, by enabling couples, especially the poor, to bring into the world only the number of children they believe they can care for and nurture to become healthy and productive members of our society".

[16] He said that the Papal Commission on Birth Control, which included ranking prelates and theologians, recommended that the Church change its teaching on contraception as it concluded that "the regulation of conception appears necessary for many couples who wish to achieve a responsible, open and reasonable parenthood in today's circumstances".

[citation needed] Opponents argue that misery is not the result of the church which they say is the largest charitable organization in the world, but of a breakdown in moral sense that gives order to society, nor does misery come from parents who bring up children in faithfulness, discipline, love and respect for life, but from those who strip human beings of moral dignity and responsibility, by treating them as mere machines, which they believe contraception does.

[33] Proponents such as E. Ansioco of Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines argued that "The World Health Organization (WHO) includes contraceptives in its Model Lists of Essential Drugs" and thus are safe medicines.

[citation needed] Proponents refer to many surveys conducted by two prominent locally based organizations (SWS and Pulse Asia) which show majority support for the bill.

A survey conducted in 2008 by the Social Weather Stations, commissioned by the Forum for Family Planning and Development (FFPD), a non-government advocacy group, showed that 68 percent of Filipinos agree that there should be a law requiring government to distribute legal contraceptives.

Consequently, these women were invited to share their experiences during plenary sessions and committee hearings in Congress, specifically addressing the deliberations on the Reproductive Health Bill at that time.

[65] Former Finance Secretary Roberto de Ocampo stated that these punitive provisions "are tantamount to an affront to civil liberties and smack of religious persecution".

[citation needed] One of the prelates the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle opposes the Reproductive Health Bill, along with abortion and contraception.

Also, the poor will not have free access to family planning support that many have want, and thus will have more children than they can care for and will not have the money to invest in education to break the intergenerational poverty they are trapped in.

[74] In December 2010, the Cabinet and the CBCP agreed to have a joint campaign providing full information on the advantages and risks of contraceptives, natural and artificial family planning and responsible parenthood.

"[75] However, by April 2011 Aquino has given his full support to the entire RH Bill in a speech at the University of the Philippines Diliman and promised to push for its passage even at the "risk of excommunication.

"[76] Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Congressman Roilo Golez and Buhay party-list separately filed bills that seek to restrict abortion and birth control use.

Presidential candidate Gilbert Teodoro or Gibo suggested a cash transfer from the government to individuals wanting access to family planning methods, whether natural or artificial.

On September 30, 2010, one of the freethinkers, Carlos Celdran staged a protest action against the Catholic Church, holding a sign which read "DAMASO," a reference to the villainous, corrupt clergyman Father Dámaso of the novel Noli Me Tangere by Filipino revolutionary writer Jose Rizal, and shouting "stop getting involved in politics!"

Anti-RH Deputy Speaker Congressman Pablo Garcia said the members of the Committee on Health knew of the WHO announcement on the carcinogenicity of combined estrogen-progestogen oral contraceptives.