MANILA -- Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said the government opposes human cloning and urged Congress to pass a law declaring the country's opposition to it, DPA reported on Friday.

Arroyo also called on all local government officials to pass resolutions against human cloning, which she said violates natural law and the law of God.

"This administration is against human cloning," she said in a news conference. "Babies are born through love and not through a cold medicine apparatus of a laboratory."

"Human cloning should be prohibited as a curse, like abortion," she added. "I urge Congress to pass a law or a resolution expressing opposition to human cloning."

Arroyo made the statement amid news reports that scientists in the United States were planning to produce a healthy human baby through cloning.

She stressed it was necessary for Filipinos to go against the decision of foreign scientists to clone humans because "it is against our faith and morality".

"We have to have faith in God, we have to preserve our morality, the honor of every Filipino family, the character of every home and the integrity of human life," she said.

The Philippines is Asia's only predominantly Catholic country, where more than 80 percent of the 76.5 million population is Roman Catholic.