The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines on Saturday accused several foreign organizations of unethical behavior for supporting the passage of the proposed Reproductive Health bill in Congress.

Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, CBCP Commission on Family and Life head, said international funding agencies such as the US-AID, the European Commission, Australia’s Agency for International Development and even Agencia Espańola de Cooperacion Internacional of Spain are pressuring lawmakers to pass the RH bill by linking increased aid to its passage.

“Unmindful of the already sharply decreasing rate of population growth in the Philippines after 39 years of unrelenting and well funded population control programs, still these international birth control groups foist upon our country their agenda for population reduction to a level that courts national peril,” he said in a statement.

Aniceto said billions of pesos have been committed and earmarked for release in the coming months, whereby funds will continue to be channeled to local government units and NGOs.

At a UN meeting on population decline, the Philippines was listed among 74 countries as "intermediate-level fertility." The meeting noted that if current trends persisted, those countries were expected to reach below replacement fertility levels.

The prelate said developments will threaten economic security in such countries with the first impact being felt in health and welfare systems.

He lamented that hefty funding which should be spent for authentic maternal, infant and child care, basic hygienic systems and measures are instead poured into contraceptives and birth control devices. “Is this good for economic development?” asked Aniceto.

Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, head of the delegation of the European Commission in the Philippines, earlier chided Philippine legislators for failing to pass the bill. He called the “provision of effective and accessible” reproductive health services “a responsibility of the State towards the people of the Philippines.”