'Main goal to provide RH services to poor still there' MANILA -- Senator Pia Cayetano said she has no doubt that the Reproductive Health (RH) Law "has teeth" even if the Supreme Court declared some of its provisions as unconstitutional. Speaking to "Mornings @ ANC" on Wednesday, Cayetano said she is "very happy" with the high court's ruling on the highly divisive law, noting that what is more important is that its main objective remains intact. "I know for a fact that the main objective, which is to provide reproductive health services access to the poor, is there," said Cayetano, who is one of the authors and sponsors of the RH Law. While she admitted that she would have wanted the SC to uphold the entire law, she said she "can live with [some provisions] being struck down." "That's how confident I am about this being a still strong law," she said. "If one or two provisions would be stricken down, to me that's acceptable. As long as the heart and the meat of the law is still there. And it is without a doubt," she added. The provisions struck down by the SC include the one compelling private health facilities, non-maternity specialty hospitals, and hospitals owned and managed by religious groups to refer reproductive health patients not in an emergency or life-threatening case to other facilities. According to Cayetano, this provision being struck down does not bother her much since the beneficiaries of the law are the poor people who do not go to private hospitals. "To me, is that so important? I'll tell you what. The beneficiaries of the Reproductive Health Law are the poor people. Do they go to private hospitals? No. They go to public hospitals, they go to barangay hospitals. Do any of them even see the light of day in a tertiary hospital? No. In those specialty hospitals? No. So we preserved the meat of it." "Interestingly also though, at the end of the day, I've talked to many doctors, they're Catholic or whatever, most of them will still give advice anyway so it really doesn't bother me that much," she said. 'Baffling, impractical' The senator said she has yet to study the full text of the high court's ruling, and there remains some confusion about certain provisions of the law that were declared unconstitutional. The provisions struck down by the SC also include the ones allowing minors who have suffered miscarriage to have access to family planning without parental consent, as well as punishing a health care provider who refuses/fails to disseminate information on reproductive health programs or refer a patient to another health care service provider. In particular, Cayetano expressed some concern over the high court's decision that a married individual cannot undergo reproductive health procedures without spousal consent unless in emergency or life-threatening situations. She described the SC's ruling on that particular provision as "baffling" and at the same time "impractical." "That provision really bothered me... Bear with me but how many men accompany their wives when they have their routine ob-gyne check-up? Buntis nga na 9 months more often than not when you see the waiting room, maybe 1 percent 2 percent have a husband with them. And then if they need to do nga a procedure, what, you're gonna call your husband and go back pa?" Cayetano said. "Seriously? If I have a growth... I have a lot of friends who say they have polyps, di naman daw ano pero mino-monitor. Eh ano, sabihin basta we monitor every 6 months. Eh let's say maraming separated in fact, or two years yung asawa mo nasa abroad. Paano yun? Papa-affidavit siya, pupunta siya sa consul, magpapa-consularize ka, authenticated?" "Seriously you gotta be a woman to understand these," she added.