Manila, June 11: The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Saturday objected to the integration of sex education in major subjects of high school students.
In a letter to acting Education Secretary Fe Hidalgo, the groups Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, represented by Angelita Aguirre, said the active promotion of value safe sex education among high school students was deeply disturbing.
Aguirre, a member of Human Life International, the core group of the CBCPs ECFL, and also the chairman of Makati Medical Center’s Department of Medicine committee on bioethics, said the campaign was fostering premarital sex.
She said the lesson guide adopted by the education department did not inform students that condom use was not fool-proof, that it could fail to prevent pregnancy by as much as 25 percent of the time.
– The lesson guide is devoid of (mangler) full disclosure and truth-telling, she said.
Aguirre said although the education department was trying to foster values, restraint (tilbageholdenhed) and responsibility, its campaign implied that premarital sex was acceptable as long as it would not result in unwanted pregnancy and transmission of sexual diseases.
Hidalgo, however, defended the lesson guide, saying its contents were “carefully crafted to naturally blend with the lesson competencies of the mother area.”
She said the guide was a prototype and its activities were suggestive not prescriptive.
The lesson guide, or the Adolescent Reproductive Health, allows the teacher to inject activities that he or she thinks is appropriate to the age, interest and capability of students.
Through these activities, teachers can disseminate information about sexuality, adolescent reproductive health, and population growth in subjects such as English, science, Filipino, health, technology and livelihood education, and araling panlipunan, or social studies.
Hidalgo said the teaching scheme was based on a study conducted by demographers and economists to address overpopulation and poverty.
Dr. Zahidul Huque, of the UN Family Planning Association, said sex education was a helpful start to solve reproductive health concerns of adolescents, who are increasingly exposed to risky behavior, such as early sexual activity.
Huque urged Hidalgo to use the program at the national and local levels.
Aguirre countered, however, that sex education must be taught by parents, not teachers.
– We know there is a time for everything because our teachers taught us character and values education. Human sexuality means our total personhood, and is not just an act, she said.
In a move aimed at reducing the incidence of abortion, a party-list lawmaker Saturday proposed to penalize medical practitioners who knowingly administer abortive drugs to their patients.
Akbayan Rep. Rodante Marcoleta is also seeking the publication of the names of medicine and other substances used to induce abortion.
Marcoleta noted that abortion was still widely committed in the countryside despite the existence of Republic Act 3915, or the Revised Penal Code, which defines and penalizes abortion.
Marcoleta has filed House Bill 5458, which expands the coverage of the penal law on abortion to include penalties on physicians, midwives and pharmacists who administer, prescribe, procure, dispense or sell any medicine, drug or other abortifacient substance or devices.
– It is the paramount interest of the state to protect the mother and unborn child in her womb, said Marcoleta in justifying the immediate passage of the bill. With Macon Ramos-Araneta
Kilder: Manila Standard og The Push journal
