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DepEd opens sex education in high schools
MANILA, JUNE 9, 2006 -- Despite strong opposition from the Church, high-school students this school year will be taught sex education including the use of condoms and other contraceptive devices, the CBCP News Service learned.
Set for implementation this month, the Department of Education has come out with a teaching module integrating population education concepts on adolescent reproductive health.
The "Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH)" lesson guide, integrate the concept in areas of Health, English, Science, Filipino, Technology and Livelihood Education and Araling Panlipunan.
"Information and services should be made available to adolescents to help them understand their sexuality and protect them from unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections and subsequent risk of infertility," DepEd acting Secretary Fe A. Hidalgo said in her foreword of said guide.
Saying that reproductive health is a "state of complete physical, mental and social well-being," Hidalgo claimed adolescents have been largely ignored to date by reproductive health service providers.
"Reproductive health needs of this group should be based on information that helps them attain a level of maturity required to make responsible decisions" she said.
Disturbed
Dr. Angelita Aguirre of the Human Life International, a core group of the Episcopal Commission on Family and Life of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), however, said she is deeply disturbed by the content of the module especially on the active promotion of "value safe sex education."
In a letter to the Hidalgo, Aguirre, who also chairs the Committee on Bioethics of the Makati Medical Center Department of Medicine, said the lesson guide is devoid of full disclosure and truth telling.
She stressed that it does not inform that the condom "does not protect 100 percent" and its failure rate varies from four to 25 percent with an average of 16 percent.
Study data
"It claims to foster values, restraint and responsibility yet it implies that sexual activity outside of marriage maybe acceptable for as long as it does not result to 'unwanted pregnancy' and sexually transmitted by 'protected sex,'" Aguirre said.
Saying that the rationale for the said module is supposed be "overpopulation and poverty," she urged the DepEd module makers to study the data presented by demographers and economists who do not from the birth control industry.
Suggestive not prescriptive
Hidalgo said the lessons "were carefully crafted so they will naturally blend with the lessons competencies of the mother area."
While the guides are just prototypes, she said the activities are suggestive not prescriptive.
"The teacher is free to inject activities that she/he thinks is appropriate to the age, interest and capability of the students," Hidalgo said.
UNFPA representative Dr. Zahidul Huque, on his part, said that sex education is a helpful start to solve reproductive health concerns of adolescents who are increasingly exposed to risky behavior, like early sexual activity.
Huque urged the DepEd to adopt said program and be utilized from national down to district levels.
Not just an act
Aguirre also wanted sex education to be done not by the schools but by parents.
"We knew there is a time for everything because our teachers taught us character and values education," she also said.
"Human sexuality meant our total personhood and is not just an act," she added.
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