MANILA, Philippines — The planned integration of an age-appropriate and culture- “The teaching and learning objectives logically spiral
ly spiral upward, beginning with more basic
sensitive sex education in the basic elementary and high school curriculum will develop
responsible Filipino youth who are aware of risks and issues involving reproductive
health, according to the Department of Education (DepEd).
Education Secretary Leonor Briones said there is a need to introduce a comprehensive
sexuality education policy to students to curb rising incidences of early pregnancy,
sexual violence and human-immunodeficiency virus among young Filipinos.
“The need to promptly arrest the surge in these cases is increasingly becoming urgent.
The young generation is really at risk,” she said.
“That’s why it is imperative to enable them to develop into responsible adolescents
capable of making rational decisions based on adequate information and better
understanding of reproductive health,” she added.
Briones recently approved a department order establishing a comprehensive sexuality
education policy aimed at providing students with appropriate life skills that can
advance gender equality and empowerment, clarify their values and attitude and
reduce risks related to poor health outcomes.
The policy is designed to ensure that the learners are receiving comprehensive and
appropriate information that can advance gender equality and empowerment.
Based on the order, the comprehensive sexuality education will have seven core topics:
human body and human development; personhood, healthy relationships; sexuality and
sexual behaviors; sexual and reproductive health; personal safety; and gender, culture
and human rights.
The topics aim to develop values including self-knowledge and self-respect, self-
protection, non-judgement, respect and concern for others, positive attitude toward
sexuality, responsibility and independence
The core topics will be integrated in learning areas such as Music, Arts, Physical
Education and Health; Araling Panlipunan; Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao; Science; and
Personal Development.
DepEd said discussions of the topics may also be integrated in other learning areas and
grade levels.
information, simple cognition tasks and skills activities gradually progressing in
complexity,” read the policy.
According to the WHO, sex education should be imparted on the
children who are 12 years and above. It is estimated that 34 percent of
the HIV infected persons are in the age group of 12 to 19. However, like
all ideologies, sex education in schools too has its own pros and cons.
Young, poor and pregnant: Teen mums in the Philippines
While teen pregnancy rates in most countries are declining, numbers are rising in the
Philippines.
Puerto Princesa, the Philippines - Angela was just 14 the first time she got
pregnant.
Her boyfriend was 19, and it was her first sexual experience.
"I wanted to cry; I was pushing him away. But he said he would take responsibility and
that he loved me," she says.
Her first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, but Angela is now a mother of four. Her
youngest child is just a week old.
She's one of hundreds of thousands of girls in the Philippines who gave birth when they
were just teenagers. While teen pregnancy rates in most countries are declining, the
numbers are rising in the Philippines. According to reports, about 500 Filipino teenagers
become mothers every day. That's about 182,500 teenage mothers every year.
The age of consent in this deeply conservative Catholic country is just 12, one of the
lowest in the world, but access to contraception is limited, and abortion is illegal.
Angela's home province of Palawan has one of the country's highest rates of teen
pregnancies. One in five teenage girls in Palawan is pregnant or already has a child.
They said it [contraception] damaged the uterus. So I got scared … That's why I kept
getting pregnant.
Angela, Filipino teen mum
Like Angela, most come from very poor communities and receive little or no sex
education.
She says her boyfriend's parents told her contraception had bad side effects.
"They said it damaged the uterus. So I got scared … That's why I kept getting pregnant."
The first time she got pregnant, she miscarried at seven months. By the time she was
16, she had given birth to another baby.
Just a few weeks after the birth, she was pregnant again.
High rate of teen pregnancies 'a tremendous problem'
Amina Evangelista-Swanepoel, one of the founders of Roots of Health, a Palawan
women's health NGO, says the high rate of teen pregnancy has wide-ranging
consequences.
"It is really a tremendous problem - not just in terms of health of the teenagers who are
becoming parents at such young ages and then the children they themselves have, but
also costing the government a lot," she says.
"So much money lost in productivity... and in terms of them being unable to join the
formal economy because they haven't finished high school, it's really a very big problem
for the country."
Health workers say they often see pregnant young girls in relationships with much older
men.
Although girls can legally have sex from the age of 12, they need their parents'
permission to get contraception or an HIV test if they are under 18.
Health workers say this leads to many girls having unprotected sex and leaves them
vulnerable to pregnancy.
The Catholic Church is one of the country's most powerful institutions, wielding
enormous influence over government policy, particularly family planning issues [Al
Jazeera]
'Our lawmakers are deeply religious people'
After much lobbying by women's rights advocates and debate that lasted more than a
decade, the Philippines national congress finally passed a comprehensive reproductive
health law in 2012, guaranteeing access to free contraception and sex education in
school.
But five years later, that law is yet to be implemented due to fierce opposition from the
Catholic Church and other anti-abortion rights groups, who challenged it before the
Supreme Court.
There is supposed to be a separation between the state and the church in the
Philippines, but most of our lawmakers are deeply religious people. While I can respect
their personal views, I do think it's problematic when they're imposing their own
religious beliefs on a population of over 100 million.
Amina Evangelista-Swanepoel, Roots of Health
More than 80 percent of Filipinos are Catholic, and the Church is one of the country's
most powerful institutions, wielding enormous influence over government policy,
particularly family planning issues.
"There is supposed to be a separation between the state and the church in the
Philippines, but most of our lawmakers are deeply religious people," says Evangelista-
Swanepoel.
"While I can respect their personal views, I do think it's problematic when they're
imposing their own religious beliefs on a population of over 100 million."
Evangelista-Swanepoel says the local Palawan government is failing to properly fund
teen pregnancy prevention programmes.
"They don't allot very much funding or any at all to contraception, and so this really ties
the hands of the provincial health office ... they can't really do very much without
having the budget to have activities and programmes," she says.
'All human life is good'
Palawan's vice governor Dennis Socrates is a firm believer in abstinence until marriage.
"I think the solution lies in a more intensive education campaign to tell young people
that sex is good, but it has to be within the context of a loving and insoluble marriage
and it must be open to life, to parenting, which is the natural consequence of the
marital act," he tells Al Jazeera.
We declared Puerto Princesa city a pro-life, pro-family city, which is really a harmless
thing and I simply refused to allocate funds, specifically to buy contraceptives.
Dennis Socrates, Palawan's vice governor and former mayor of Puerto Princesa
Socrates, a member of the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei, is vehemently
opposed to all forms of artificial contraception and even some natural ones.
"Even withdrawal is an immoral means for preventing birth because there's an active, a
positive act to prevent the outcome which is the natural consequence of the marital
act," Socrates says. "All human life is good, even life that is helpless, even life that
belongs to a poor family, even human life that isn't wanted by the mother."
When Socrates was mayor of Puerto Princesa in the early 2000s, he stopped the
funding for contraceptives distributed through public health centres.-------
"We declared Puerto Princesa city a pro-life, pro-family city which is really a harmless
thing and I simply refused to allocate funds, specifically to buy contraceptives," he says.
'I might die if I give birth again'
But Angela, the young mother of four, believes having access to contraception and sex
education could have changed the course of her life.
Now living with her boyfriend and children in a ramshackle hut surrounded by mud,
Angela often struggles to scrounge together enough food to feed her family.
"Sometimes I cry because my children are suffering as sometimes they have nothing to
eat," she says. "Sometimes I wish this didn't happen to me so my children wouldn't
have to suffer."
Angela believes things would have been very different if she'd known more as a
teenager.
"It's better to be educated about what contraceptives are available and what sex is
about. That's better than being ignorant."
She is determined that the baby she gave birth to a week ago will be her last - she was
fitted with an intrauterine device after the birth.
"This will be the last one. I don't want more kids," Angela says. "I might die if I give birth
again."
The 1987 Constitution of the Philippines declares: The separation of Church and
State shall be inviolable. (Article II, Section 6), and, No law shall be made respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free
exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination
or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be required for the
exercise of civil or political rights. (Article III, Section 5).....
The Supreme Court of the Philippines, ruling in 2003[1] and 2006[2] in the landmark
case of Estrada vs. Escritor, established the doctrine of benevolent neutrality-
accommodation. The 2006 ruling, penned by former Chief Justice Puno, explained
benevolent-neutrality in the context of U.S. jurisprudence as follows:
Abortion[edit]
Article II of the 1987 Philippine Constitution says, in part, "Section 12. The State
recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a
basic autonomous social institution. It shall equally protect the life of the mother and
the life of the unborn from conception."
The act is criminalized by Philippine law. Articles 256, 258 and 259 of the Revised
Penal Code of the Philippines mandate imprisonment for women who undergo
abortion, as well as for any person who assists in the procedure. Article 258 further
imposes a higher prison term on the woman or her parents if the abortion is
undertaken "in order to conceal [the woman's] dishonor".
There is no law in the Philippines that expressly authorizes abortions in order to
save the woman's life; and the general provisions which do penalize abortion make
no qualifications if the woman's life is endangered. It may be argued that an abortion
to save the mother's life could be classified as a justifying circumstance (duress as
opposed to self-defense) that would bar criminal prosecution under the Revised
Penal Code. However, this has yet to be adjudicated by the Philippine Supreme
Court.
Proposals to liberalize Philippine abortion laws have been opposed by the Catholic
Church, and its opposition has considerable influence in the predominantly Catholic
country. However, the constitutionality of abortion restrictions has yet to be
challenged before the Philippine Supreme Court.
The constitutional provision that "[The State] shall equally protect the life of the
mother and the life of the unborn from conception" was crafted by the Constitutional
Commission which drafted the charter with the intention of providing for
constitutional protection of the abortion ban, although the enactment of a more
definitive provision sanctioning the ban was not successful. The provision is
enumerated among several state policies, which are generally regarded in law as
unenforceable in the absence of implementing legislation. The 1987 Constitution
also contains several other provisions enumerating various state policies.[note
1]
Whether these provisions may, by themselves, be the source of enforceable rights
without implementing legislation has been the subject of considerable debate in the
legal sphere and within the Supreme Court.[note 2]
An analysis by the Population Division of the United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs concluded that although the Revised Penal Code does
not list specific exceptions to the general prohibition on abortion, under the general
criminal law principles of necessity as set forth in article 11(4) of the Code, an
abortion may be legally performed to save the pregnant woman's life.[2]
The biggest constraint to establishing proper urban waste disposal facilities in the
country is refusing to accept them in your own city.
Metro Manila is now home to more than 12 million people. As with many other
megacities in Asia, waste collection and disposal is a major environmental issue.
Currently about 35,000 tons of municipal solid waste are generated by the Philippines
daily, and more than 8,600 tons per day in Metro Manila alone. A sizable proportion of
the refuse is openly burned, further worsening the quality of the city’s already heavily
polluted air.
The problem extends beyond the capital.
Daily garbage generated in northern Baguio City increased by more than 20% from 2008
to 2013. Since the Irisan dumpsite trash-slide incident in 2011, Baguio has used landfill
facilities in Pangasinan and Tarlac provinces. In Cebu, the Inayawan landfill still operates
years after it was supposed to have closed upon reaching 7 years of service life in 2005.
Philippines municipal solid waste problem extends beyond Manila
There have been attempts to hold back the tide of rubbish. The 2000 Ecological Solid
Waste Management Act is considered landmark legislation on environmental
management. It aimed to systematically organize and sustainably manage the collection
and disposal of municipal solid waste (MSW) in the country.
The law mandated the establishment of MSW collection systems anchored on the 3R
formula—Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. This involves segregation at source and the
establishment of intermediate facilities such as materials recovery facilities, which
ideally should be established at the barangay (neighborhood) level.
It also provided specific deadlines for closing unsanitary open dumpsites, and supported
properly engineered sanitary landfills as the only sustainable means of final garbage
disposal.
However, many of the law’s goals have yet to be achieved. Cities are still dumping
waste on open dumpsites. In 2010, when all open dumpsites should already have been
closed as mandated by the law, 790 were still operating.
NIMBY attitudes prevail
Three major obstacles have contributed to this failure – and one is linked with the
provisions of another law.
The biggest constraint to the establishment of proper MSW disposal facilities is the
“Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) attitude. It’s like saying “yes, we need dumpsites, but
please put them somewhere else.”
Social perception and assessment exercises have attempted to educate communities
about the difference between materials recovery facilities, sanitary landfills and open
dumpsites. But the common notion of what a dumpsite looks like is embedded in
people’s minds.
Making matters worse is that cities that have welcomed dumping have not been able to
present a good model. Take for instance the (controlled) dumpsite in Payatas, Metro
Manila, where leachate has found to leak through to the Marikina River tributaries. In
2000, an enormous pile of garbage collapsed, killing over 200 people and injuring
hundreds more.
3 major obstacles to blame for Philippines municipal solid waste failure
A second obstacle is financing and governance. The investment costs and management
burden of a comprehensive MSW management system are too burdensome for many
cities.
Local government units (LGUs) are tasked with enforcement. This includes preparing
MSW management plans and setting up proper facilities. But the law does not cite
specific enforcement actions, and many LGU officials lack management and technical
competency.
Moreover, the 3-year term limits for elected local officials also constrains them to
adequately plan long-term solutions.
Finally, investing in such systems is also very costly, often too much for a single LGU.
Incineration ban is no solution

Attempts at “city-clustered” initiatives to co-develop and co-finance MSW management

projects foundered when it was time to decide the location of the landfill – again
NIMBY prevailed.

Third, the ban on incineration eliminated a viable alternative to landfilling. The 2000
law solely prescribed engineered sanitary landfills as the acceptable method of final
waste disposal, and the 1999 Clean Air Act prohibited incineration for MSW disposal.

The Clean Air Act’s stated goal of curbing greenhouse gas emissions is actually hindered
by banning incineration. Studies have shown that sanitary landfills with methane
recovery systems produce 2-to-3 times more carbon dioxide equivalent, sulfur dioxide,
and nitrous oxide than incineration-based electricity systems per kWh of power
generated.

Landfills without methane capture are much worse, because the escaping methane is
34 times more harmful to the environment than carbon dioxide.

Ironic that Philippines is only country that bans incinerating waste

The basis for banning incineration was the old technology used in existing incinerators
in the Philippines which operate below 1,000°C. But modern incinerators are hotter and
can eliminate toxic gases such as dioxins and furans.

It is ironic that the Philippines is the only country in the world that bans incineration for
the disposal of MSW. The Dutch city of Rotterdam, for example, has a huge incineration
plant right in the middle of the city. Singapore has 5 operating incinerators that process
9,000 tons of waste per day, about the same amount that Metro Manila produces daily.

17 years after the passage of the Ecological Solid Waste Management, MSW collection
and disposal is still a major problem. The NIMBY attitude, weak LGU capacities, and lack
of alternatives to landfilling have aggravated the situation.

The private sector does have the technical competence and available solutions to solve
the problem. Perhaps it’s time for private companies—especially energy and recycling
businesses—to step in.