In early April, the Philippines Supreme Court ruled that most sections of the Reproductive Health Law (RH Law) are constitutional, assuring improved reproductive healthcare access for women across the country. According to a recent Social Weather Stations poll, 77 percent of Filipinos supported the ruling. The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) fought the bill for more than 10 years while it languished in Congress and, after President Benigno Aquino III signed the bill into law last December, led the legal challenges to the law’s implementation.

More than one-third of Filipinas have an unmet contraceptive need. Health disparities, including high maternal mortality rates, disproportionately affect the poor, who also often could not afford to protect themselves from a growing HIV epidemic. Now free condoms and birth control pills will be available from government health centers, according to Agence France-Presse.

For the committed activists who fought for the legislation, many of them Catholic, the ruling is somewhat bittersweet, as the Supreme Court did rule that some parts of the law were unconstitutional. The court ruled in favor of exemptions for religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics, as well as for healthcare providers and institutional administrators who cite religious objections to contraception.