American writer Ellen Goodman once wrote that talking about teenage sex “is like shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.”
In the Philippines, even up until this day and age, when talking about sex, many Filipinos look at it as a taboo. A topic that is to be avoided at any cost, especially on family events and what not. It is a topic that creates an awkward environment. In fact, when it is talked about, Filipinos would either tend to joke about it or change the topic outrightly. More so, when you talk about it upfront, Filipinos would stare at you as if you’ve done something very obnoxious. A very judgmental attitude, if I were to say.
So judgmental is our society that when laws regarding sex education was introduced by our Congress years back, the Philippines, as a whole, reacted in a negative manner. In fact, in the wake of the passage of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act in 2012, the Supreme Court sought to intervene in the right of young people to seek reproductive health services. In amending the law, the high tribunal required adolescents seeking such services from public health providers to first show proof of parental consent and approval.
Unfortunately though, because of such, this has led to a negative repercussion: A lot of teenage pregnancies in the country.
A girl aged 13-years-old from Bontoc, Mountain Province had just been registered as a mother in 2022. Though, bearing a child is a gift, having a child at such a young age may cause a lot of difficulties of the child-mother, so to speak. As studies show, mothers aged 10-19 face higher risks of eclampsia, puerperal endometritis and systemic infections compared to women aged 20-24. Babies of the said mothers also face higher risks of low birth weight, preterm birth and severe neonatal condition.
An unfortunate event in the Philippines, indeed.
