InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
MANILA, Philippines - Among her first acts in her return to the House of Representatives, former President and Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will join the lawmakers opposing the Reproductive Health (RH) bill.
"I’m voting against (it). I have not seen the records of the debate so far," she told reporters in an interview at the House Tuesday.
Arroyo, clad in white, arrived at the House at around 4 p.m. and briefly sat at the session hall to greet her colleagues. She last stepped at the hall in July 2011, during the opening of the second regular session of the 15th Congress.
She has since undergone three surgeries on her cervical spine, and had been in detention at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) since December 2011 on electoral sabotage charges in connection with the 2004 and 2007 polls. She is currently out on bail.
Arroyo said her visit was a “dry run” for Tuesday, August 7, when the lawmakers vote whether to terminate the debates on the RH bill.
A devout Catholic, Arroyo has kept open her stance against the controversial measure.
Attempts by advocates to pass the RH bill during Arroyo's nine years in Malacanang have all failed.
Arroyo instead implemented a policy of responsible parenthood that left it up to the local government units to implement their own RH policy within the constitutional mandate of freedom of choice.
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