Better Bill Proposals. Please.

A month or two ago, I was railing at the fact that while our beloved solons - some of them, anyway - have been moving sky and earth to ensure that the Reproductive Health Bill (a comprehensive bill that will enable our citizens have both the knowledge and the means to enact the best family planning method for themselves, to give our women the services they so desperately need and must have in order to continue their pregnancies safely, and to educate our citizens on a matter as sensitive as sex in a clinical, scientific fashion, among other meaningful goals) will never see the light of day, a news item immediately came out after Shamcey Supsup placed third runner-up in the beauty pageant "Ms. Universe", and it stuck out because it came from one of our solons.

Rep. Lani Mercado-Revilla, wife of Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla, Jr., proposed a "resolution seeking to honor Supsup for the honor she brought to the country." (Full story here, as well as the other solons with similarly aligned thoughts: http://www.journal.com.ph/index.php/news/top-stories/13328-2-lawmakers-eye-shamcey-as-ph-tourism-booster)

And now, we have news of another solon, Bohol Rep. Rene Relampagos, seeking to change the name of EDSA (Epifanio De Los Santos Avenue), the major thoroughfare in Metro Manila into Cory Aquino Avenue,  who said that "Congress should give additional recognition to Mrs. Aquino being the first woman president of the country and an icon of democracy when she led the people in the 1986 People Power Revolution." (See: http://www.journal.com.ph/index.php/news/national/18124-solon-rename-edsa-to-president-corazon-c-aquino-avenue)

(Courtesy of dearbloggery.com)

How can we even hope to compare proposals to honor a "beauty queen" and changing a highway's name, with a comprehensive piece of legislation that will effectively arrest unwanted pregnancies, curb the number of abortions in this country, and respect our free will to make our own choices regarding our own bodies?

Meanwhile, close to two decades after it was first brought up for legislative discussion, the RH Bill remains a non-entity, languishing in the halls of Congress despite the fact that every time people are polled, we want information that will save lives, we demand better public health services from our government, and it is our right to have all the scientific and factual information on hand to make decisions that can change each of our lives.

We need a better brand of legislator.