CABANATUAN CITY—A lawmaker warned over the weekend that the Department of Health’s plan to distribute condoms to high school students could backfire and may only arouse malice among them.
Nueva Ecija second district Rep. Micaela Violago told reporters here that the condom distribution would also heighten sexual curiosity among students, thus the DoH should go slow on its controversial plan.
“If you ask me, before you ever think of distributing condoms to students, you better educate them about sex. It’s education first before distribution,” Violago said.
She said she found it awkward that students “would be exposed to such kinds of mature thinking” without making them learn first.
“For me, teach them first about sex education, then afterwards, distribution may come. But without educating them, you will only instigate malice to come in,” she said.
Violago said this after Education Secretary Leonor Briones said top-level discussions have started between the Department of Education and the DoH on how they could roll out the condom program, which is meant to arrest the surge in cases of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome among young people.
The condoms would be distributed among junior and senior high school students next year.
The DepEd said it could explore other measures to address the rising HIV and AIDS cases among young Filipinos without compromising the parents’ right and responsibility to educate their children against the dangers of engaging in premarital sex and the state’s mandate to protect minors from abuses.
Instead of a comprehensive sex education program as proposed by Violago prior to handing out the condoms, DepEd plans only to hold counseling sessions, the lawmaker said.
Violago, a member of the House committee on health, said the plan might only create more trouble unless the youths are educated.
“Because of the generation gap between the elders and the youths, this plan might cause the young ones to be rebellious, because the more you tell them not to do this or that stuff, the more they would insist on doing it,” she said.
The government should channel its energies and resources to address the problem of premarital sex and teenage pregnancies, Violago said. She said in her district, girls as young as 13 get pregnant.
“For example, in Barangay Caanawan in San Jose, there was this 13-year-old mother I came across and this 15-year-old in Barangay Bagong Sikat. It’s very disturbing,” she said.
“I find this very alarming, so we should find a way to address this,” the lawmaker said.