Instead, the bishops urged the country’s lawmakers to use the money for hunger and poverty alleviation and free education.

"We hope it is not true that Congress plans to appropriate R1 billion for the purchase of condoms, birth control pills, and other "reproductive health" products to control population growth," CBCP president and Jaro (Iloilo) Archbishop Angel Lagdameo said.

"If it is true, we categorically object to it and instead strongly recommend that the R1 billion be directly appropriated and/or added to hunger and poverty alleviation projects, as well as for free education of extremely poor children," he added.

Lagdameo said the use of abortifacients, contraceptive pills and devices, sterilization, and directly willed abortion are wrong in themselves as these are against nature and God’s law.

"They are wrong not because the Catholic Church forbids them; rather, the Church forbids them because they destroy the fruitfulness of human reproductive capacities given by the Creator, and hence are morally wrong. It is not just a matter of being conservative, but also of being morally upright," he said.

What the Church advocates, he said, is natural family planning as this is the only morally acceptable way of practicing responsible parenthood.

And the doctrine of the Church on principled population control, Lagdameo said, is what priests should proactively preach to the faithful.

"The Church does not forbid the advocacy of the increase or decrease of population, provided the freedom of the couple to exercise sexual and family morality, according to their religious conviction, is respected. Since the Church objects to the use of artificial contraception, the Church likewise objects to their dissemination, creating thereby a contraceptive mentality towards a culture of death," said Lagdameo.

"We strongly encourage and support our legislators in Congress and the Senate who promote the moral teachings on life, family, and population," he said.