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I received this an e-mail from a friend regarding a petition to convince our legislators to pass the Reproductive Health Bill (RH). I hope that you will take part in this campaign.

The struggle for the passage of the Reproductive Bill (RH) in Congress rages on. The Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) through our org, the Democratic Socialist Women of the Phils. (DSWP) initiated an online petition that we request you to support by attaching your signature. Please go to http://www.PetitionOnline.com/rhan2008/petition.html to do this.

We hope to gather ONE MILLION SIGNATURES to show our legislators that there is a wide support base for the bill’s passage despite what the opposition says. We will present the signatures both to the House of Representatives (HOR) and Senate within September as we are waiting for the schedule of plenary deliberations in the HOR and the release of the Senate Committee on Health’s report.

Please support the petition. It will not take more than 5 minutes of your time. More than 10 women die daily due to pregnancy and childbirth-related causes. The big bulk of those who die are poor women at the prime of their lives. This is simply unacceptable and must be stopped. Congress has the power to do this.

Kindly share this information to all your friends.

Last night two of my colleagues and I covered an event in Katipunan called “One Smoke-Free Night,” a benefit concert for project Brave Kids. It was also an avenue to raise public awareness on the health hazards of cigarette smoking. One of the event’s organizer was FCAP or Framework Convention on tobacco control Alliance Philippines. Currently, the organization is pursuing the passing of House Bill (HB) 3364 or the Picture-Based Health Warning Bill, which, when approved, graphic photos of the effects of smoking to ones health will replace the usual text warning in cigarette packs. The picture-based warning will be placed on the back panel of the cigarette package, the picture will occupy at least fifty percent of the back panel and the text warning must be in Filipino. In addition, no misleading descriptions should be placed in cigarette packs like “light or low tar,” because no matter how “light” or “low” the tar content is, it will still have the same effect in a person’s health.

a sample of how the picture-based warning will look like in cigarette packs

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