Despite his previous stance on the issue, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III vowed to fully implement the controversial Reproductive Health (RH) Law.

“We have to implement the law as a member of executive branch of the bureaucracy. It is our bounded duty to implement what is in the law,” Duque said on Monday when he officially assumed as head of the Department of Health.

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He was Health secretary during President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s term, during which he maintained the government’s natural family planning policy.

“There’s a law [now] and we have to implement the law. Before, there was no law yet. Now, we have a law already,” he said.

He assured RH advocates that he would not let his personal opinion get in the way of his mandate as Health secretary. —Tina G. Santos

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