THE National Youth Commission is urging Congress to lower the age of parental consent for teens to have themselves tested for the human immunodeficiency virus afflicting the youth these days.
In a Palace press briefing, NYC chairperson Aiza Seguerra stressed the need for parents to talk to the young generation and provide them adequate information about HIV.
“The HIV, its new face, is the youth. That’s why … we launched this campaign because we wanted this number to lower. Hopefully, the youth will have themselves tested [for HIV] and that their parents would accompany them,” Seguerra said.
She added: “The law says if you’re under 18 years of age, you can get tested that there is no parental consent and we all know [how] hard it is, right? For example, asking their consent that we’ll be going to an all-nighter from our parents is already hard. What more, if you’ll tell your parents that, ‘Ma, Pa, I’m sexually active.’ ‘Ma, Pa, I might have HIV, please go with me.’ So it’s very hard.”
“That’s why actually we’re pushing also to lower it down, the age of testing and [giving of] RH services [so they themselves can get tested,]” the NYC chairman added.
According to the 2013 Young Adult Fertility and Sexuality Study of 15 to 24 year old Filipinos, awareness of Aids among the youth has declined in the past decade, and there is a substantial proportion of the youth who have misconceptions about HIV transmission while there is low level of comprehensive correct knowledge of HIV and Aids among them.
The same survey revealed only 30 percent or 3 in 10 Filipino youth have discussed HIV and Aids with other people. 29.3 percent of age 15-19 and 30.9 percent of age 201-24 have discussed it.
Of this number, only 6.8 percent of males discuss it with their fathers and 12.5 percent of females discuss it with their mothers.
Some 8.4 percent of males amd 8.6 of females discuss HIV and Aids with their spouse or partner.
Seguerra encouraged the public to help disseminate the correct information about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
“Why do many still die [because of HIV infection]? Why do many still get infected? So I think, the problem here is, it’s not actually the HIV that kills the people, it’s actually the stigma,” Seguerra said.