Bishop Odchimar Plays Selective Politics on Contraceptives

Bishop Nereo Odchimar, head of the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported saying that PNoy "could be excommunicated for declaring his government would provide birth control to those who asked for it." This is an admission that bishops of the Catholic Church in the Philippines have lost moral influence on her own members, and instead play politics with the government leadership as a deperate move to control government policy instead of doing its job in effectively evangelizing the Catholic faithful.

One unpalatable taste to this move is the bishops' silence when previous administrations did nothing to remove birth control program that had been ongoing for decades in the country. Observers cannot failed to doubt the real motive for this action against a government who had been serious in destroying graft and corruption in public service.

Another suspicious part of this announcement is the idea that the government leadership who let the people choose in what method of family planning to adopt must be singled out for harassment when the leadership felt helpless to even implement such excommunication threat to those who may have already used artificial birth control in managing their family size. Who then will be more guilty of the "moral crime," the president who supported an already existing program or the people who actually used artificial birth control methods?