ALARMED by what he described as the “alarming rate” of incestuous relationship in the families of overseas contract workers, a legislator has filed a bill moved to criminalize incestuous sexual relations between family members, imposing stiffer penalty to guilty parties.

Partido ng Masang Pilipino Rep. Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro City said House Bill 3595 criminalizes such sexual relations because they are contrary to public morals and public policy.

Rodriguez said there is no law in the country that penalizes sexual relationship between members of a family. Likewise, there is no law that penalizes sexual relations between consenting parties 18 years of age and above.

Rodriguez described the incest relationship among the families of migrant workers as the “most damaging social impact of labor migration.”

He said more than 70 percent of the Filipino workers deployed abroad are women.

According to Rodriguez, older daughters of women overseas workers are made to take on the roles left by their mothers as “substitute spouses.”

He said the problem remains unreported owing to its sensitive nature and mainly because of the fear of the aggrieved party to file charges against her own father, uncle or brother.

Under the bill, incestuous relationship will cover ascendants and descendants of any degree and between brothers and sisters, stepparents and stepchildren, parents-in-law and children-in-law, and adopting parents and adopted child.

The bill imposes six to 12 years’ imprisonment to offenders.

Rodriguez said Article 335, Paragraph 7 of Republic Act 3815, as amended, also known as the Revised Penal Code, previously imposed the death penalty for rape when “the victim is under 18 years of age and the offender is a parent, ascendant, stepparent, guardian, relative by consanguinity or affinity within the third civil degree, or the common spouse of the parent of the victim.”

Ermita hit for ‘stretching’ SC ruling

SENATORS on Monday slammed Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita’s “erroneous” interpretation that a recent Supreme Court (SC) ruling effectively allowed Cabinet officials to evade Senate summons to testify in inquiries into alleged anomalies in the Arroyo administration until the publication of Senate rules covering investigations in aid of legislation.

INTERNATIONAL Container Terminal Services Inc., the country’s largest port operator, has bagged the 25-year contract to manage and operate the state-owned Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) in Misamis Oriental, besting two other bidders.

THE National Police and the Armed Forces are discussing a proposal for the police organization to take over the anti-insurgency operations in some areas in the country.

A NATIONAL Police task force tasked to investigate cases of unexplained killings has filed 83 cases, arrested of 28 suspects, affected the surrender of 14 others and had four assailants convicted, a report to the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) revealed.

A RECENT report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed that while the Philippines has a low brain drain rate, Filipinos who reached college remain attracted in working or settling over long periods in OECD’s 29 member-countries.

ORGAN transplants in the Philippines, including those scheduled under the medical-tourism program, have been temporarily held in abeyance by the Department of Health (DOH) pending approval of a new policy being drafted that will establish a board to set the guidelines on organ transplantation in the country.

ALARMED by what he described as the “alarming rate” of incestuous relationship in the families of overseas contract workers, a legislator has filed a bill moved to criminalize incestuous sexual relations between family members, imposing stiffer penalty to guilty parties.

LABOR Day is just a month away and Sen. Mar Roxas wants to be able to present a labor law exempting minimum-wage earners from income taxes so that he will push for it as soon as Congress resumes in April.