Angie's Silence and the RH Bill

Angie, portly at 36, lives in the slums, and is a workaholic. She is in perpetual motion, sometimes forgetting to breathe, but never forgetting to smile.

What a joy to have her at home! She comes in before breakfast and leaves after supper, three times a week, to help Ate Vi with the household chores.

"Angie, come sit down for some chat," I called out one day to give her a break from the umpteenth job she was doing.

She refused to sit down. She just stood there smiling while I asked her questions. "I am not trying to pry, I just want to get to know you a little better."

She talked as she worked, non-stop.  She has four children, three are with her mom in the province; only Neneng, 10, the youngest, is with her in Manila.  With her income from houskeeping, she could only afford to keep one child with her.

Her husband, whom she had to marry at age 17 because she was pregnant, left her for good after Neneng was born. “He has had so many girlfriends,” she revealed.  Before his final exit, "He kept leaving for months on end, living in with his flavor of the month.”

Since she was being candid, I was emboldened to ask, "So why do you have four children if he's been cheating on you since day one?"
“Uh, I thought that by allowing him his marital rights, he would change, and stick to his wife.”

"Four times?"

Silence.

“What if he comes back for the fifth time?” 

Silence.

"Is he supporting the kids?"

Silence.

Many women out there are suffering in silence like Angie, unaware of their rights, beholden to the man they married in their teens.    

The proposed RH Bill (Reproductive Health Bill), which guarantees access to methods and information on family planning and maternal care, is still being debated heatedly and its passage is moving at a lethargic pace.

Aside from this still-mute bill, there is no formal source of information about responsible parenting.  Many mothers don't pound morality on their children's head anymore; or children today don't listen. 

Teenage pregnancy is growing at a terrifying rate.

Thirty percent of  all births belong to this group; by the age of 20, 25% of them are already mothers, clueless on how to live decent lives and bring up their children. 

“Were you aware of your responsibilities when you got pregnant?”

Silence.

I rephrased the question, “Didn't you know that parents are responsible for their children?”  

Silence. 

I took a harsher tack. “Did your mother ever warn you about pre-marital sex?” 

Silence.

I remember my mother, grandmothers, and aunts counseling me endlessly about keeping one's body pure for the man she will marry—it was glued in my young mind.

These days, morality, or the lack of it, is no longer black or white, it's all shades of gray.

I have no hand in enacting laws to help curb unplanned pregnancies, but in my own miniscule way, I took the time that afternoon (four children too late) to talk to Angie about God's design for the family—that children have rights, too, and becoming a mother should not be an impulse or a result of uncontrolled passion. It should be a conscious and careful choice.  

She began to cry and I was unsure if I was making my point.  I realized that one casual getting-to-know-you-better talk could not begin to solve her complicated problem.

“Medyo nalilinawagan ko na po, Ma'am,” she sobbed. (Translation: Ma'am, I think I am beginning to understand.)  Angie attends a weekly Bible Study session in her neighborhood.  

From my end (and hopefully yours), I could immediately do something: pray that God's grace of wisdom be upon Angie and the many women like her as they wrestle with problems about a  philandering husband and children whose needs—emotional, spiritual, physical, financial—they could not meet because of their decision (or indiscretion) to have them for the wrong reasons.

One other thing we can collectively do, while awaiting the fate of the RH Bill, is to talk to the unenlightened women/men in our circle about God's purpose in creating the family—in having and raising children.

One talk at a time.

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6