For a country that has prided itself with putting a premium on family and its values, it is surprising to discover that until this time, there is still no enacted law in the Philippines on surrogacy or a method of the so-called assisted reproductive technology, a predicament that has been taken advantage of by nefarious groups to advance their criminal agenda, such as human trafficking.
In the latest disturbing development, a Cambodian court has convicted 13 Filipino women for human trafficking-related charges for acting as surrogates in Cambodia and conspiring with a syndicate selling babies to foreigners for money. These women were each sentenced to imprisonment of four years after being declared guilty by the court of “selling, buying or exchanging a person for cross-border transfer.” This is a disgusting and abhorrent way to make money out of selling babies for cash and a deplorable means adopted by some women who, perhaps due to hardship, are compelled to use their wombs as baby factories.
In one report from the online news website Rappler, they were able to interview several so-called surrogates who have intentionally and deliberately adopted and accepted this means of making money and for some have made it their livelihood, even enticing others to join in that activity as a means of making a living.
Because there is no specific law in the Philippines regulating surrogacy or even other methods of assisted reproductive technology, it is wide open to exploitation and abuse. Even if such an industry, if you may call it that, has made the lives of other people – the intended parents – better and happier, the lack of controls have led to money-making schemes that produce victims, such as the 13 Filipino women who will now spend some time in jail for engaging in such a scheme.
Now, in other countries such as in the United States, surrogacy is widely accepted as a scientific intervention for procreation. Surrogacy has been defined as a process wherein a surrogate, a woman, bears and carries a child for another through medically assisted reproduction and pursuant to a written agreement between the surrogate and the intended or commissioning parent(s) (Sec. 7960(f), California Family Code as amended). But here in the Philippines, there is the absence of any legislation that should regulate surrogacy, a fact that opportunists have taken advantage of in order to make oodles of money out of the plight of these surrogates.
Since there is no specific law or legislation that would permit or prohibit commercial surrogacy perhaps the members of Congress, instead of focusing much of their attention and time to political controversies should immediately pass a law or approve a bill that would finally regulate all methods of assisted reproductive technology to avoid adding further to the number of Filipino women charged in court and incarcerated because of human trafficking.
At the moment, or more specifically in May of last year, Zamboanga City representative Khymer Adan Olaso finally made a proposal under House Bill 8301 which seeks to regulate the conduct of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and the procedure for surrogacy in the country.
That House Bill, which will establish the ART and the creation of the Surrogacy Regulation Commission, seeks to put into paper regulatory policies and measures relative to the implementation of ART as well as, according to Congressman Olaso, “surrogacy procedures that would utilize ethical practices and techniques that would put a premium on the well-being of all parties involved”. He further added that his bill will also provide “clear cut guidelines on parentage since it states that a child born out of surrogacy procedure will be deemed to be a biological child of the intending couple and the said child will be entitled to all the rights and privileges available to a biological child under existing laws”.
Let us hope that the Lower House of Congress will fast track the approval of this bill to protect Filipino women from being victims of human trafficking syndicates as well as benefit those whose marriage and union have failed to produce children.
