ROTARY CLUB OF MANILA JOURNALISM AWARDS
2006 National Newspaper of the Year 2011 National Newspaper of the Year 2013 Business Newspaper of the Year 2017 Business Newspaper of the Year 2019 Business Newspaper of the Year 2021 Pro Patria Award PHILIPPINE STATISTICS AUTHORITY 2018 Data Champion
EJAP JOURNALISM AWARDS
BUSINESS NEWS SOURCE OF THE YEAR
(2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021) DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
2018 BANTOG MEDIA AWARDS
A broader look at today’s business
www.businessmirror.com.ph
n
Sunday, January 19, 2025 Vol. 20 No. 99
P25.00 nationwide | 2 sections 12 pages | 7 DAYS A WEEK
A SOLUTION WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM
I
PETRO KUSHNARYOV VIA DREAMSTIME.COM (GENERATIVE ILLUSTRATION)
The speed with which Congress is moving on a bill further institutionalizing a little known Department of Education program on sexuality education has alarmed many groups, who say it will spawn more serious problems than the crisis it seeks to blunt, i.e., the rise in teen pregnancies.
By Claudeth Mocon-Ciriaco
T is purported to help address an undeniable problem—the alarming rise of teenage pregnancies in the country—but why are parents and some groups up in arms over the implementation of a Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) program by the education department, and further embedded in Senate Bill (SB) 1979, otherwise known as the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy Act of 2023?
The CSE—and by extension, the bill—is facing a backlash after a video of Project Dalisay circulated online recently, drawing attention to the dire implications of the Department of Education’s (DepEd) CSE program and Senate Bill 1979, authored by Sen. Risa Hontiveros. In the Facebook page of Project Dalisay posted on January 10, “Explainer Video: Unmasking the Perils of CSE,” former Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno, Chair of the PCEC Legal Advisory and Public Policy Review Commission and one of the convenors of the National Coalition for the Family and the Constitution (NCFC), said that in 2018
DepEd adopted CSE, which was pushed by United Nations agencies Unesco, UNFPA, and the Unicef. “Duty nila [DepEd], na lahat ng references nilang dinikit, kasi iro-roll out na eh, should have been examined categorically as compliant with the Constitution. The Constitution requires us to look at the family’s life as sacred and as the foundation of the nation. “The DepEd did not consult the parents, the Filipino parents, neither did they consult the faith community. They just rolled it out. Why? Because they need to comply with the international push to promote the CSE,” Sereno said.
ON COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY EDUCATION: “The DepEd did not consult the parents, the Filipino parents, neither did they consult the faith community. They just rolled it out.”— Former Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno
ON PRESERVING INNOCENCE: “Imagine, our children, are at a tender age. They’re innocent. You will shatter their innocence.”—Pastor Caloy Diño, NCFC National Director
ON PARENTAL CONCERNS: “When the mothers wake up [to this], watch out!”— Jerika Ejercito Aguilar, PCEC Family Commission
Innocence MALOI SALUMBIDES, co-chair of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC), said that CSE will have a great impact on children. Speaking partly in Filipino, she added, “And then there are the topics included for study and discussions pertaining to oral and anal sex,” she said. Jerika Ejercito Aguilar, member of the PCEC Family Commission, shared Salumbides’s sentiment. “It’s stated there, when they’re six years old, they will be taught how to experience their body through their five senses,” Aguilar said, referring to DepEd Sample CSE Curriculum-Sample Health Education 1.
ALARMING TEENAGE PREGNANCY TRENDS IN THE PHILIPPINES 3,343 children were born to mothers aged 15 and below in 2023. 3,225 of these children were born out of wedlock. 118 children were born to married mothers aged 15 and under.
HONTIVEROS’S REBUTTAL: “Absolutely none of those concepts exist in our bill. These outrageous claims...were pulled out of thin air.”—Senator Risa Hontiveros
EDUCATION SECRETARY’S ASSURANCE: “We make sure that we have a balanced perspective and implementation.”— Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara
“I was trying to play it out in my head: How are they going to do this in a classroom setting? I have a 10-year-old [child] but it says in the CSE, by age nine, they will be taught that they have their own sexual rights. And if they do decide to be sexually active, that’s their right?” she pointed out. Aguilar admitted that she was surprised when she learned about CSE. “You know, mothers don’t know about this. They will object. I just don’t know about it, but the moment I found out about it, everything I had in me [was determined to] fight for the innocence of my children. When the mothers wake up [to this], watch out!” she warned. Continued on A2
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 58.5010 n JAPAN 0.3772 n UK 71.6228 n HK 7.5126 n CHINA 7.9793 n SINGAPORE 42.8234 n AUSTRALIA 36.3408 n EU 60.2560 n KOREA 0.0402 n SAUDI ARABIA 15.5920 Source: BSP (January 17, 2025)