BACOLOD CITY—Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez is pushing for a 300-percent increase in the allocation for reproductive health care in next year’s national budget to help curb population growth.

He said he would also sponsor a bill that would allow same sex

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marriage.

Alvarez was in this city on Friday to officiate at the oath-taking of officials of Negros Occidental as new members of the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan.

In his speech, Alvarez said he had instructed his staff to prepare a draft bill on same sex marriage because he wanted to sponsor it.

He said he would also ensure that a lot of money was allocated to reproductive health care to address population growth.

Alvarez pointed out that Malaysia, whose territory was nearly the same size as the Philippines, had a population of only 32 million, less than a third of the Philippine population of just over 100 million.

Laos, which is smaller than the Philippines, has a population of six million, less than a fourth of the population of Mindanao which is 25 million.

“No matter what we do, poverty will be hard to address if we don’t manage our population effectively,” he said.

“We really have to do something to manage our own population that was not addressed by past administrations, especially because of the objection of the church,” he said.

Not against Church

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Alvarez stressed the administration was not against the Catholic Church which espouses natural family planning.

“I am asking them (the Church)—if they are not doing anything to help the government address the problems of poverty—the best thing they could do is to keep quiet and let the government do its duty and obligation to the people,” Alvarez said.

Poverty could be addressed with proper population management, he said.

He joked that same sex marriage would be a natural way to control the population.

In the 2016 General Appropriations Act, the budget for reproductive health care was slashed by P1 billion—from P3.2 billion to P2.2 billion—on the instigation of legislators opposed to the Reproductive Health Law.

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