The RH Bill is Not a Cure-All

The RH bill debate has been raging for years now, but only in the last couple of years has it gained traction in Congress. It is THE single most explosive issue in the country today, inviting unbridled emotions from advocates on both sides of the debate. 

I've seen and heard a lot of arguments from those sides. It's impossible to avoid those arguments on Facebook and Twitter. I firmly believe that the RH bill should be approved as soon as possible for the benefit of the poorest families in the Philippines. 

An oft-repeated argument is that this bill will lead to more promiscuous behavior. Now, as a Christian, I do not condone promiscuity. People should not go around sleeping with anyone they find desirable. My belief is that sexual behavior should be solely within the confines of marriage. 

However, it is a sad fact that promiscuous behavior DOES happen. Women get pregnant, and many times either the man who got them pregnant isn't man enough to provide for the child or there simply isn't enough money to take care of that child. In that case, it's the child who suffers the most from the wrong choices of his parents. 'Wag na nating idamay ang bata.

Should that child be made to suffer the brunt of those wrong choices? I don't think so. That child doesn't even have a fighting chance of getting all his needs met. Many times, this happens in the poorest communities. 

Another line of reasoning I've heard is that the more people there are, the bigger the chances of jobs, as companies will be lining up to hire Filipinos. I've even heard it said that poor families need more children because THOSE children can help feed the family. PLEASE. 

I'd like to hear THAT told to the mother who needs to feed 12 children. I'd like to hear THAT told to the millions of people wallowing in poverty. 

I don't pretend to know how much these people earn, but for the sake of argument, let's try some logical conjecture here, shall we? 

The minimum wage for full-time work is about 400 pesos, depending on the industry. That means that the monthly salary for someone who earns that much is roughly 8,000 to 10,000 pesos. 

For those who give birth, the cost of normal delivery hovers around 20,000 to 30,000 pesos. If you are so unfortunate as to need a C-section, the cost shoots up to around 50,000 to 100,000 pesos. 

Then there's the cost of taking care of a baby adequately. The cost of 900 grams of S26 Gold is more than 1,000 pesos (not sure how long that will feed a baby). Of course, breastfeeding is best, but a woman can only breastfeed for so long. 

Then there are the other costs of raising a child -- education and health being most important. There are no free lunches, and at some point everyone pays for these things, even though the government provides for lower costs at government hospitals and public schools. 

The victims here aren't the parents who have children. They're adults who make a choice. If they are married, they are well within their rights to have sexual relations. 

The victims here are the children who have to live with subpar parenting and inadequate provisions because the parents aren't prepared for parenthood. 

The RH bill is not a panacea, but it's certainly one of the ways to avoid this situation. The medicines are legally available ANYWAY. What the bill does is make the same medicines available to people with means available to those who need these medicines the most. 

Is the Linux Desktop Dead?

Last week, one of the founders of GNOME, formerly one of the most popular Linux desktop environments, came out and pronounced the Linux desktop dead. Such a bold pronouncement indeed, and one bound to guarantee a lot of enemies. Linus Torvalds rejected this notion outright. 

I have to agree with Linus here. The continued development of Linux on the desktop is certainly cause for optimism. I don't think that it will ever be as big as Microsoft or Apple, but Linux desktops have been at the forefront of innovation for personal computers in the past decade. 

The Linux desktop is thriving.
(image courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu)

Consider, for instance, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. It's vastly different from Windows or OS X, but nonetheless it is of high quality. I mean, it has to be if Google uses it, right? I've been using it for a year and a half now, and I have to say that it gets better with each release. Because 12.04 is a long-term support release (hence the abbreviation "LTS"), I don't have to reinstall a new version for the next five years, as opposed to the 18-month shelf life of a regular release. 

Perhaps the reason many people say the Linux desktop is dead is because those people are focusing only on Europe and the US. Indeed, the desktop may be dying in those places because of the popularity of mobile devices and the cloud. I get that. 

In Asia, though, desktop computers are more affordable than laptop computers. It's possible to buy a desktop for as low as $500. Laptops, on the other hand, may cost you $900 or more. 

Add to that the free nature of many Linux distributions, and you can see that desktop Linux in Asia (and probably in other parts of the world) is far from dead. In fact, I think it offers us a quality alternative to Windows software, which is quite expensive for many people here. Most people, of course, would not spend a single dime on software if they knew they could get an alternative one for free. 

Hopefully, development on the Linux desktop continues. It truly offers people a chance to use quality software. Like I said, I've been using it for quite some time, and I only use Windows at work because I don't have a choice. Linux doesn't have to compete with Windows. It only needs to be a great alternative OS -- which it already is.