As I see it, today’s RH bill debate has become something that can be likened to ‘contentious politics’ or a protracted clash between two or more actors that involve a contentious object that is important to their very interest or standing in the society.

From what I gleaned from this framework in sociology and political science, I am of the impression that it has become a non-debate due to the absolute negation—the tendency to totally silence the political actor—of the pro- and anti-RH advocates in the RH bill debate. With this RH bill non-debate, making a stand or being political in this very moment has become, for me, an ambiguous thing.

Non-debate: silencing and pluralizing

The clash of claims on the RH bill made by both sides forecloses the debate due to their tendency to absolutely negate “the other” through their exclusionary violence or agenda setting. This “silencing-privileging” of their regimes of ideas are employed in the very articulation of their claims.

As we all know, the central issue of the RH bill is basically the “lack” of something in the status quo. This lack is supposed to set the tone of the debate because its commonality in framing will keep both the pro- and anti-RH advocates within the discursive space of the debate despite the diverging views on the political outcome.

As one can observe in this debate, the two opposing claims about the lack tend to absolutely negate each other through the privileging of their own view at the expense of silencing their opponents view.

On the one hand, what the pro-RH advocates want to change in society is that lack of reproductive health rights which include, but are not limited to, better reproductive health services and access to and use of modern family planning methods, be it natural or artificial. The passage of the bill, for the pro-RH advocates, would mitigate the growing number of maternal deaths across the country.

On the other hand, the anti-RH advocates deal with this lack through the reason-argument that is seen in their “population control,” “contraceptives” and “abortion” framings. These framings involve the claim of the anti-RH about the negative effects of the passage of the bill to the present institutional (i.e., marriage, family, etc.) and structural (i.e. morality, reason, etc.) tendencies and outcomes that constitute the very stability and constancy of the general social order in our country.

Aside from the silencing tendency, another thing that further complicates the debate on the RH bill is the multimodality of views that comes from the inherent dissonance between insiders who articulate the dominant view or claim, and outsiders who are supposed to diffuse the dominant view or offer a new view or claim of the debate. Due to lack of space, I have only highlighted some familiar instances that can support my point.

Firstly, the anti-clericalism framing tends to facilitate the absolute negation through the articulation of anti-religious or ad hominem claims directed toward some anti-RH advocates.

Secondly, the framing of “non-lack” of the anti-RH that aims to falsify the empirical grounding of the pro-RH advocates tend to commit, this time, straw man claims toward the pro-RH advocates.

Lastly, the biased or “unexamined thoughts” framings of both pro and anti-RH advocates usually undermine the deepening of the debate through the articulation of off-tangent claims on RH bill.

This pluralizing in the RH bill controversy furthers my claim about the RH bill non-debate due to the multiplicity of discursive spaces brought by the numerous framings of the advocates on the debate of the RH bill. The sad thing about this plurality of spaces in the RH bill debate is that most of the spaces today do not really engage the main issue of the bill itself.

The ambiguity of a stand

The ambiguity or the indeterminacy of the act of making a stand for or against the RH bill basically speaks of the nonsensicality of being political in today’s issue on the RH bill. Making a stand for me, implies, the identification of the other—the other that I can contrast with or I can relatively counteract using my political tendency.

With the things that I have said about this debate, it is very unfortunate on my part that I have become incapable of making a pro- or anti- stand about the bill. The only thing that I can do, for now, is to make a stand about the act itself of making a stand.

My stand about the about the RH bill debate today is that the act of making a stand was structured by the pro- or anti-, or the antagonistic framing that tends to limit the act itself to the problematic absolute negation of the pro- and anti-RH claims. I am critical of those who make a stand because of their growing inability to identify or relatively counteract the other in their political act of making a stand.

This is my challenge now to my colleagues, students and other people who are engaged in this debate. I am not questioning your sincerity and passion about the RH bill. I am just here to further your political tendency by inviting those who have already made their decision about this bill to not to forget their adversary.

I invite the opposing sides to transform the antagonistic framing of the debate into an adversarial one by identifying your respective positions in this debate at the expense of the positioning of and not at the expense of silencing the other. With the recent engaging statement of the pro-RH advocates in the Ateneo, I am positive that with patience and diligence I can finally make a stand about the RH bill. While I wait for the anti-RH side, I hope and pray that they will also be engaging like us in the Ateneo. Kudos to all of us!

Mr. Arjan P. Aguirre is a lecturer of the Political Science Department, School of Social Sciences, Ateneo de Manila University. He specializes in contentious politics, social movements and Philippine politics and governance.