The Influence of the Roman Catholic Church on the Perception and Response to Family Planning of Filipino Catholics

Abstract

Being a largely Catholic nation, it is undoubted that the influence of the Catholic Church is rather apparent in almost all aspect of the Filipino society. Its authority is even immensely felt in the government, the reason almost all the legislative and administrative endeavors of present and past administrations are all in accordance to the assenting opinion of the Catholic Church. Given the outspoken disagreement of the Catholic Church to artificial family planning, administrations from Marcos to Arroyo are not able to promulgate a concrete family planning law that could address the growing dilemma of rapid population growth. As for the Filipino Catholic, has the opinion of the Catholic Church on the issue at hand has influenced them as much as it has influenced the government? Chapter 1 is essentially the introduction of the research. This chapter is the preface of the entire study by which the significant agenda of the research was presented. Basically, the assumption of the study is that the influence of the Church never ceased to exist on its followers even on the issue of family planning. Chapter 2 discusses the actions of different administrations to address the dilemma of population explosion in the country, and had focus also on the role and influence of the Church on the projects and policies of each regime. In here, the family planning endeavors of former presidents Marcos, Aquino, Ramos and Estrada, as well as the present administration under Arroyo, are tackled. Apparently, none of them are able to establish a real measure to control the further increase of the population. The family planning scenario in general, focusing on the statistical researches and results from the SWS, NSO and other institutions, was tackled in Chapter 3. The statistics gathered for this study shows that more are in favor of the pill and other artificial method. Also, the opinion of the Church is somehow overlooked by many Filipinos when it comes to family planning, and the people takes into consideration their personal opinion more. The focus of Chapter 4 was the statistical data gathered by the researchers through survey. The perceptions and responses of Catholics were the focal points of this chapter. The results gathered by the researcher are similar with those of the statistical data discussed in Chapter 3. Lastly, Chapter 5 discusses the summary, analyses of data and conclusion of the researcher in accordance with the topic at hand, it is concluded that in the issue of family planning, it is not the Church’s opinion that matters but that of the people themselves.