Following a Commission On Population (PopCom) report that an average of 574 teenage girls get pregnant daily in 2017, senators Juan Edgardo Angara and Sherwin Gatchalian will file separate resolutions for an inquiry into the rising incidence of child and teenage pregnancies.
Angara and Gatchalian cited the need for the government to act immediately to arrest the situation, which the PopCom said should be declared “a national emergency.”
Angara said his resolution seeks to strengthen Republic Act No. 10534 or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012 which mandates the provision of age and development-appropriate reproductive health education, including teenage pregnancy.
RA 10354 also tasked the Department of Education to formulate a curriculum for each educational level or group, subject to consultations with parents-teachers-community associations, school officials and other interest groups, to be used by public schools and may be adopted by their private counterparts.
Despite the passage of the RH Law, Gatchalian lamented that nine percent of 4.9 million teenage women aged 15-19 years old have begun childbearing based on the Philippine Statistics Authority’s 2017 National Demographic and Health Survey.
He said PopCom also reported that between 2011 and 2017, pregnancies in the 10-14 age group increased by 50 percent from around 1,000 to 2,000 cases, of which 30 to 50 percent are among 10-year old kids.
The data on child and teenage pregnancies in the country, Angara said, should be a cause for alarm due to its increasing number.
“What is even more alarming is that 30 to 50 percent of these pregnancies involved 10-year-old girls. Children this age should be in school and playing with other kids. They cannot possibly be ready to get pregnant and raise their own children,” Angara said.
“When young girls get pregnant, they are forced to quit school. Their lives take an unexpected detour, ambitions are set aside and they effectively lose their childhood. No child should have to go through this,” he added.
Gatchalian, on the other hand, wants a Senate inquiry to strengthen the comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) and curb teenage pregnancies in the country.
“Despite the existence of the CSE and the RH Law, teenage pregnancy rates in the country are still alarming,” he said.
“We need urgency in institutionalizing measures and ensuring their proper implementation to address this situation. Protecting girls from teenage pregnancy empowers them to be independent and economically productive members of the society,” Gatchalian added.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said teenagers, especially the poor and marginalized, get pregnant because they lack access to school, information, and sexual and RH care.
The UN agency added that teenage pregnancy costs the Philippines P33 billion in annual income.