MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago on Monday revealed one of her greatest fears when she was still commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration.

Santiago, principal sponsor of the reproductive health (RH) bill in the Senate, said she once told reporters that she was not afraid to die especially after receiving death threats when she was still immigration commissioner.

"I am not afraid to die but I'm afraid that there might be no sex after death. I have thought and thought about the matter and have reached the conclusion that yes,  there's sex after death but you cannot feel anything," she said to laughter.

In her RH Bill sponsorship speech, Santiago noted that the Catholic Church is the "only major religion" in the Philippines that opposes the RH bill.

She said the bill, which promotes all forms of family planning including contraceptives, has been endorsed by religious groups such as the Iglesia ni Cristo, Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, the Interfaith Partnership for the Promotion of Responsible Parenthood and the Assembly of Darul Ifta in Muslim Mindanao.

She also opposed the Church's argument that sex's main purpose is for procreation. "Why am I not persuaded by this argument? During sex, couples should only concentrate on having children. They should not concentrate on anything else. You might as well have sex with your eyes closed," she said.

Santiago said gone are the days when the task of the layman was to simply obey the priests who are treated like they belong to a "special caste." She noted that many medical advances were prohibited for a time because they were opposed by the Church.

The senator said the absolute authority of the Catholic Church has grown weaker over the years since the 1968 Humanae Vitae encyclical, which bans Catholics from using artificial contraceptives.

She said the encyclical "made the ordinary Catholic realize that the Church hierarchy does not have all the answers and forced her to think of the role of individual conscience."

Santiago said the Catholic Church should focus on other issues such as poverty and corruption in government.

"I very humbly appeal to Church authorities to exercise strong leadership on moral issues such as war and peace, poverty, corruption in government instead of a non-issue like the RH Act," she said.