The Filipino is facing up against conservative and church leaders in a bid to provide free birth control to women in the mainly Catholic country.
Rodrigo Duterte issued an executive order on Monday ordering a family planning programme to go ahead.
At the moment it is difficult for people to get access to contraception as the Supreme Court has tried to block the the Reproductive Health Law, passed in 2012.
The country’s Catholic bishops have criticised what they described as the president’s ‘anti-life’ measures, calling on people to join a ‘grand procession’ next month to make a stand.
‘When society opens its doors to welcome artificial contraception, abortion, divorce, legalised same sex union, it opens the minds of people to a particular mindset that problems can only be resolved through termination of relationships, terminations of person,’ the Episcopal Commission on the Laity of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines said.
However, Duterte, who is Catholic, says that giving people the means to limit or space out births will help sustain economic growth.
He directed agencies to fund and enforce the family planning programme to ensure free access to birth control, sidestepping the Supreme Court’s order.
‘Here comes President Duterte issuing an executive order circumventing the intention of the hold order,’ said congressman Jose Atienza, representing a political group called Life.
He told Reuters his group will study Duterte’s directive ‘word for word, phrase by phrase,’ and ‘if illegal, we will question it’ before the court.
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