[OPINION] Blurred sexuality talks are the ultimate unprotection

By Jelo Ritzhie Mantaring

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At 10 years old, I remember I was more focused on how to improve my essay submissions in school. While somewhere in the country or the world, a 10-year-old girl might be giving birth.

For adolescents to worry about pressing matters outside education, much less bearing a child, is truly unthinkable. But we are in this world where issues and problems are intersecting with one another, thus creating realities that we must face. In the Philippines, recent data shows 70,755 families were led by minors. The Commission on Population and Development has been noting the continuing rise of teenage pregnancies since 2011.

Calls to solve this national emergency have resurfaced last month, since a survey found that 59 percent of Filipinos think early adolescent pregnancy is the “most important problem of women today.” The Social Weather Stations’ survey revealed the next most important problems were physical violence and unexpected pregnancy both at 11 percent.

How can we prevent teenagers from getting pregnant? Days would not suffice for the issue to be over. It is an issue that targets taboo and stigma. It would challenge culture and beliefs held by the Philippine society. We cannot deny that our country has conservative views, especially backed by religion.

It is to be said that our lawmakers are giving the issue the urgency it needs. They have filed laws since the 13th Congress to address the grim reality that our youth is facing. Girls are becoming unplanned mothers at an early age. If some women are still unsure if they can care for a child, then what happens when children are bearing children?

In a Rappler article last year, Carolyn Sobritchea has expressed somehow her pessimism regarding the passage of measures to combat early teenage pregnancy. As the head for the technical panel for women’s and gender studies at the Commission on Higher Education, and a resource person for Congress, she has seen the repeating cycles of refiling bills to fight this issue.

Sobritchea mentioned that certain provisions on refiled bills last year were “hilaw” or raw even though the bill was generally “very exhaustive.” The “raw” provisions (though, according to Rappler, were not given much details) were on what schools and expected efforts from the local government units can do to teenage mothers.

“I’m a veteran in seeing laws pass concerning women… Although we have affirmed the importance of the matter due to the statistics and alarming rates, I don’t think the bill will pass this Congress,” Sobritchea said as quoted by Rappler.

Truth be told, discussions on Senate Bill No. 1334 or the “Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy Act” were suspended last September due to “strong objections” from Catholic schools. This is because one of the provisions of this bill’s 2020 version is to create a comprehensive sexual education on which more than 1,500 Catholic schools raised as a conflict on academic freedom.

To fight teenage pregnancy is to fight institutions. Talks about reproductive health is an intersectional debate on culture, religion, and inequality. The Covid-19 pandemic has even worsened our conditions that is why we must swiftly work on eradicating this social problem. If our institutions cannot be united before in solving teenage pregnancies and tackling reproductive health, then can they now?

One way to help in preventing teenage pregnancies is to have open communication to children about sexuality. We should stop “baby-talking” children about their reproductive organs, and creating fictional stories on how they came out to the world. Bearing children is a responsibility, and the young are not ready to handle this kind of situation.

Not to mention teenage mothers could be living in poverty, without access to proper information, education, sanitation, and health services. Most of all, some of these pregnancies are the results of rape and prevalent abuse on women, especially young girls. They are vulnerable and we must continue to fight for protection of minorities. We should blame the perpetrators of rape, harassment, and abuse, not on the victims, not on women.

I then urge fathers to teach their sons to not wield their penises like shiny swords nor to use it to gain dominance. I urge to stop the toxic culture of treating the opposite sex as objects and symbols for gratification.

Let’s be clear that sex is not a bad thing. What should be addressed are the consequences of unprotected, uninformed sex because of conservative views and stigma. That is why comprehensive information and education regarding reproductive health and sexuality must be advocated. The more we blur and hinder the discussion, the more we let people, especially the youth, have a vulnerable future.