Senator Risa Hontiveros said teenagers should not be harassed or humiliated to avoid teenage pregnancy, considered by socio-economic planners a “national social emergency.”
Instead, the Akbayan senator said a teenager should be afforded understanding, education and medical help.
Hontiveros has been pushing for the passage of the ‘teenage pregnancy prevention bill’ to address the rise in adolescent birth rates around the country.
In the House, two lawmakers have asked Congress to craft a national policy against teenage pregnancies.
Reps. Sol Aragones of Laguna and Edcel Lagman of Albay filed House Bill 2297 or the “Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy” in response to the worrying increase in teenage pregnancies.
The bill declares it is the policy of the State to recognize, promote and strengthen the role of adolescents and young people in the overall human and socio-economic development of the country not only in the future, but also in the present.
It is also the policy of the State to recognize and promote the responsibility of the State to create and sustain an enabling environment for adolescents to enable them to achieve their development aspirations and potentials as well as mobilize them to positively contribute to the nation’s development.
The bill defines adolescents as the population aged 10 to 19 years.
The measure mandates the National Youth Commission, Department of Education, Department of Health, Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the Commission on Population, in collaboration with other relevant national agencies and civil society organizations, to develop an evidence-based medium-term National Program of Action for the Prevention of Teenage Pregnancy.
Hontiveros made the call came after Socio-economic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia and the National Economic and Development Authority alerted the public to the skyrocketing number of teenage pregnancies over the past decade.
Pernia, on the other hand, said teenage pregnancies is now a “national concern.”
He noted that in three regions in Mindanao (Davao, Northern Mindanao, Socckscsargen) alone, as much as 15 to 18 percent of teenage girls living in those areas had already given birth to children.
Hontiveros, author of Senate Bill 161 or the “Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy Act of 2018,” said the solution to this health and social problem lies with legislation “that will deal with its main causes: lack of proper information of our youth and lack of access to relevant reproductive health services.”
She explained that under her bill, the government would launch a comprehensive, age-appropriate sexuality education to better inform young Filipinos and parents alike about sex, gender, and reproductive health issues.
The said education program would cover public and private school, universities and would be provided even to out-of-school youth.
The bill also mandates more social protection programs for teenage mothers, such as accessible maternal health services, workshops, and livelihood programs.
Likewise, the bill also provides medical, legal and other services for teenage mothers who were victims of sexual abuse or violence.