UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Let’s face it. The Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country, has a major problem with teen pregnancies and a steadily rising rate of HIV infection. One in 10 female teenagers below 15 years of age get pregnant or already have a child of their own.
The teenage pregnancy rate is rising (35 percent increase between 2021 and 2022), and it is negatively impacting these very young mothers’ lives economically and socially. They tend to drop out of school to care for their children, a case of a child raising her own child.
Teen pregnancies also carry serious health risks for both the very young mother-to-be and her child, with these child-mothers being twice as likely to die from pregnancy complications than those 20-30 years old.
The Philippines has the fastest growing HIV epidemic in the Western Pacific region, with a 411 percent increase in daily HIV infections between 2012 and 2023. In a country with the highest rates of tuberculosis, TB is the leading cause of death among people living with HIV. I stand witness to this with our laboratory’s increasing census monitoring HIV cases’ viral loads as well as these cases’ CD4 (T helper cell) counts.
Unfortunately, HIV is also prevalent among male teenagers, mirroring their female counterparts’ predicaments with teen pregnancies. Thus, we have the current teen population being battered with these twin issues of early adolescent pregnancies and HIV infections.
The controversy regarding Senate Bill 1979, which aims to prevent adolescent pregnancies, the spread of HIV, and prevention of gender-based violence, is rooted in a deeply conservative mindset that does not allow discussions on sex. Neither parents nor schools are keen on providing age-appropriate sex education. Critics of the bill are raising a howl about non-existent wordings in the bill such as stating that four-year-olds are to be taught about masturbation, or that children aged nine years will be advised on sexual rights.
Our Catholic upbringing has fostered deep-seated attitudes about sex being taboo, and children are left to their own devices to explore sexuality, which comes during adolescence. Raging hormones bring about confusion as to what these new sensations are.
In the older days, the older teens are looked up to for advice and example or they turn to pornography. But in the digital era, they just turn to their phones and other devices to view pornography and find sexual partners online. Without the proper context, sex is viewed as a purely pleasurable activity without regard for safety from pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STI).
The experience in other countries that have sex education in their curricula shows that it doesn’t encourage early initiation of sexual activity. In fact, it actually delays onset of sexual activity and when they do, these teens tend to use birth control devices.
But old habits die hard. The mere mention of sex as in sex education conjures images of teenagers engaging in sex orgies and other depravities in the minds of the older generation. Thus, it should not have come as a surprise that many who read the Senate Bill imagined all sorts of sexual perversions in-between the lines.
However, on reading the bill, the text actually sounded boring and made no mention of the “M” word. Masturbation (or self-pleasuring) is actually a harmless release from sexual tensions brought about by hormonal surges, which is a substitute for engaging with a sexual partner that carries risks for unplanned pregnancies or STI, including HIV.
It is an activity almost universally resorted to by people of all ages in the privacy of their homes or other places. There are many myths about masturbation causing blindness, hairy palms, impotence, penile shrinkage and curvature, low sperm count, infertility, mental and physical weakness, all of which are not true.
The problem is, those who are opposed to contraceptive use are the ones claiming that once the bill is enacted into law, there will be widespread promiscuity since it will also address the use of condoms to prevent unintended pregnancies and STI.
The misinformation has gotten to the point that the United Nations chimed in to state that there are no such provisions in Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), and that it should be culturally sensitive as well as age-appropriate.
It is time we face up to modern-day realities that if we don’t give our children the proper age-appropriate sex education, they will get inaccurate information somewhere from others who may not have the best intentions for youngsters, with the worst consequences of STI, adolescent pregnancies that have higher maternal mortality, and various forms of gender-based violence.