RH BILL
On the first business day of the year, a couple filed in the Supreme Court a suit against the newly signed Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012, which mandates the State to provide the poor with reproductive health (RH) services, including access to contraceptives, and sex education to schoolchildren.
Lawyers James Imbong and wife Lovely-Ann, who filed the suit on behalf of their two children and the Magnificat Child Development Center Inc., asked the high tribunal to stop the implementation of Republic Act No. 10354, saying it was unconstitutional.
The Imbongs claimed the law also “mocks the nation’s Filipino culture—noble and lofty in its values and holdings on life, motherhood and family.”
It was the first petition filed against the RH law barely two weeks after President Aquino quietly signed it into law following heated debates in Congress and protests by the Catholic Church.
Grounds for appeal
In a petition for certiorari and prohibition, the petitioners cited two grounds for their appeal: The RH law “introduces policies that negate and frustrate the foundational ideals and aspirations of the sovereign Filipino,” and it “cannot be implemented without exceeding the boundaries of government action, as established in the Constitution.”
Imbong was accompanied and assisted by his mother, lawyer Jo Aurea Imbong, in filing the petition in the high court. His mother, a lawyer of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), is the “collaborating counsel” in the case.
Speaking to reporters, Imbong said he did not consult any CBCP or Church officials when he drew up the petition, adding he wrote it on his own. But he said he informed the CBCP media office about the filing of the petition.
Pro-Life official
Imbong, secretary general of Pro-Life party-list group and a member of the Ang Kapatiran Party, said he expected other Catholic and prolife groups to file similar petitions.
“We filed this on the first business day of the year because we want another chance to prove that this law should not be implemented as long as we have life, family and we respect our Constitution,” Imbong told reporters.
He said the country needed to continue to respect the words of the 1987 Constitution, especially those about honoring life, family and spiritual morality—principles that he noted were absent from the reproductive health law. Respect for life
The Constitution upholds the “ideal of an unconditional respect for life and aspires for the establishment of policies that create opportunities to harness the economic potential of every Filipino,” the petitioners said.
They said Article 2, Section 12 of the Constitution called for the protection of human life.
“The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and the life of the unborn child,” read the Constitution.
They said there was neither a charge nor a qualification to that policy, “except that the life of the mother is equally important as the life of the unborn and rightly so. In fact, the charge is against the State itself—that it shall do one thing when it comes to the potential of human life; to protect it from the moment of conception.”
Raising kids humanely
But they said this policy was negated by Section 2 of the RH law when it stated that “the State shall also promote openness to life; provided that parents bring forth to the world only those children whom they can raise in a truly humane way.”
“This means that if a certain group of parents is not in a position to raise children in a ‘truly humane way,’ the State has a duty not to promote openness to life as regards such parents,” the petitioners said.
This conclusion, they said, was “reflective of the policy” in different parts of the RH law, citing several sections where the State is mandated to prioritize women and children in poor households for reproductive health care services and family planning methods.
Poor primary targets
“A plain reading of those provisions simply reveals the intention of the Act to bring reproductive health care services within easy reach of the poor. By doing so, the poor become the primary targets of the State’s planned-parenthood policy—a subtle way of telling the poor that the State will subsidize their right to have access to ‘modern’ methods of family planning simply because they are poor,” the petitioners said.
By contrast, the Constitution “empowers and encourages the poor to be direct agents of change and direct beneficiaries of social services and economic opportunity,” the Imbongs said.
Social service redefined
They said the new law redefined social services for the poor.
“First, social service, according to the Act, is about bringing the poor closer to having fewer children, because, after all, who else are at a social disadvantage in bringing forth children whom they can raise in a ‘truly humane way?’ The upper class? The middle class? The lower middle class? Or the poor?” they said.
Secondly, the law was about “reducing the poor population by directly reducing their numbers,” they said.
“The Act does not say it that way but it actually moves in that direction and leads the poor toward that path through the subsidy incentive it provides them,” the petitioners said.
Noting how the law has “consistently and repeatedly” referred to the poor as the preferred beneficiaries of the State-sponsored planned-parenthood, they held that people “as human capital, is a nation’s wealth.”
Population decline
They said the new reproductive health law would bring about “an inexorable population decline” and would “effectively erase the modest but promising economic gains proudly claimed by the country’s economic leaders and noticed by the world.”
“Enforcing the Act is the same as ‘shooting ourselves in the foot’ and, like prodigals, throwing our winnings to the winds,” the petitioners said.
They asked the court to declare unconstitutional paragraph 9 of Section 2; the last paragraph of Section 2, Sections 3 (d), (e), (g), (i); Section 4 (r); Section 7; Section 11; Section 13, and Section 17 of the law.
They also argued that the Constitution upheld the ideal of an unconditional respect for the family’s inherent sanctity and autonomy.
But they noted the law had a mandatory sex education program and it “mocks the sanctity, autonomy and inviolability of marriage and family, making these attributes meaningless empty embellishments.”
They also asked the court to declare unconstitutional Section 4 (v), which states that “responsible parenthood means having the psychological, physical, social, cultural and economic preparedness to determine whether or not the parents’ desire to have another child is proper and timely.”
On their second argument, the petitioners said the law’s statutory standards upon which the implementing rules were to be based were unconstitutional.
They said RA 10354 could not be implemented without going beyond constitutional boundaries and limitations imposed on the government.
Preliminary injunction
The petitioners asked the high court to issue a temporary restraining order/preliminary injunction even if the law had not been published.
They said the remedy for a preliminary injunction was only available “before the contemplated illegal act is done.”
The petitioners asked the Supreme Court to direct the respondents and all persons acting on the basis of the Act to stop implementing it. The respondents included Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Health Secretary Enrique Ona, Education Secretary Armin Luistro and Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas.

FORMAL PROPOSAL

Dear Minister,

I am the lead designer for Web Design, LLC. Our company specializes in creating an inexpensive Web presence for churches and other non-profit organizations. I am a member of First Church in [MyTown]. My pastor, John Christian, mentioned that you are looking for a way to expand your Outreach. In today's world, the Internet is an excellent way for your church to expand its Mission programs as well as giving your staff and membership an alternate method of communication and an easy source of information on upcoming events.

My company has built Web sites for Second Church and Other Denomination in [HisTown]. Our hosting company has a strong reputation for reliability and security. We also provide an easy to use Dashboard for maintenance purposes. Once the site is up and running, we will train you or your representative on how to update the site as part of our service. A basic site with five pages of information will cost around $200 and take approximately 30 days from inception to go live. The annual fee for the hosting is only $35.

I realize you must discuss this proposal with your board members. Please put the matter before them at the next meeting and contact me with their decision.

Sincerely,

Ann Webmaster
Phone:
Email:

INFORMAL PROPOSAL

A Sample Informal Proposal
Below you will find a sample proposal asking for new pencil sharpeners for a small private grade school. After each section, we'll provide a commentary to explain how what has been written works as part of a proposal. The Header
To: Rev. Mark Smith
From: Nicole Johnson
Date: March 10, 2011 Subject: A proposal to purchase new pencil sharpeners for the classrooms of St. Mary’s School
Purpose
I write this letter to propose a solution to a recurring problem at St. Mary’s School. The problem is that the pencil sharpeners in the classrooms are very old and do not work effectively anymore. Students and teachers continually become frustrated because it is difficult to sharpen a pencil with the current sharpeners, and pencils that are sharp are crucial for effective learning.
I suggest that we order new pencil sharpeners for each classroom so that the students will have pencils that work well and will therefore be able to write without the frustration of worn down pencil points. * Commentary On the Purpose: Because the audience is the pastor of a church that has a grade school, and because the pastor is not using the classrooms in the school every day, he may not know how bad the pencil sharpeners are. Thus, the problem is stated clearly at the beginning in the purpose section of the proposal
Problem of Ineffective Pencil Sharpeners
There are 217 students enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade at St. Mary’s School. These students occupy 12 classrooms each day. None of these classrooms has a pencil sharpener that works well; it takes several minutes to sharpen just one pencil.
This means that if all of the students need to sharpen their pencils once a day (depending on how much writing is being done, a pencil may need sharpened more than once a day), it could take an average of thirty minutes to sharpen them all before the students can sit down to their desks and start learning the day’s lessons. Thirty minutes of time spent sharpening pencils takes away a great deal from instructional time.
However, not all the students need to sharpen their pencils at the same time. This need arises at various times throughout the day, often at the beginning of a test or a new lesson.
Because of the length of time it takes to sharpen a pencil, the teachers have continuous interruptions in their lessons throughout the day. Almost everything done in a classroom requires a pencil, especially as students get older, and it is difficult to get anything done without this basic tool.
The current pencil sharpeners have been in the classrooms as long as Mrs. Morris has taught here, and that is over thirty years. They do not work well because they have been in use for so long. Even after sharpening for several minutes, the pencil points still are not as sharp as they should be, and the points break off easily, causing them to need to be sharpened yet again. * Commentary on the description of the problem: In this section, the proposal gives more details and background information about the kinds of problems caused by not having effective pencil sharpeners in hopes that the pastor will realize the degree to which the poor sharpeners detract from student learning.
Solution to the Problem
I propose that we purchase electric pencil sharpeners for each classroom. These work quickly and effectively, and take only a few seconds to sharpen a pencil.
Office World carries several pencil sharpeners designed specifically for schools and the high volume of use the sharpeners get in classrooms.
I propose we purchase 12 of the Used-All-Day Pro Student Electric Pencil Sharpeners. These sharpeners have received strong reviews on the Office World web site. In addition, Central Elementary School purchased these for all their classrooms four years ago, and their principal has told me how well they still work. * Commentary on the solution: The goal of this section is to convince the pastor that acting on the proposed solution will reap immediate benefits in the classroom. The proposal is specific in the solution; it does not suggest purchasing just any pencil sharpeners, but specific ones that have been researched. It also includes the recommendation of a friend who is a principal at another school to show that other people say this solution works well for them.
Costs
The Used-All-Day Pro Student Electric Pencil Sharpeners cost $42.29 each. However, Office World gives a discount if purchasing ten or more, reducing the cost to $35.29 each. Because we are a member of the Office World Schools frequent shopper program, we will receive 2% of our purchase back at the end of the school year. This makes the total cost of the purchase $415.01.
Several electric sharpeners exist that cost more and less than this one, but because of the recommendations of others, I believe that purchasing a middle-priced sharpener will be a wise choice for St. Mary’s School. Because Office World offers free shipping for purchases over $50, we will not have any shipping costs. * Commentary on costs: In this section, the proposal shows exactly how much the purchase will cost. It also shows how the writer has not chosen the most or least expensive sharpener, but one that is priced in the middle. The writer also spells out any additional financial benefits the school will receive by making this purchase.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I think purchasing new electric pencil sharpeners for each classroom would be of tremendous benefit to St. Mary’s School. It would put an end to the constant frustration of students never being able to find sharp pencils, and of losing instructional time because of the length of time it takes to use our current sharpeners.
Thank you for considering making this purchase for our teachers and students! * Commentary on Conclusion: The conclusion restates the problem and the proposed solution, and ends on a positive note encouraging the reader to act on the proposal.
As you can see, writing a proposal does not have to be an overwhelming task. With a bit of thought and research, you will be able to write an effective proposal that has a good chance of being approved.