Intervenors push for sex education

TWO advocates of reproductive and women’s rights on Tuesday asked a Quezon City court to allow them to intervene in the case that aimed to block a program on sex education in select public schools.

Earlier, defeated senatorial candidate lawyer Jo Imbong filed a class suit seeking a temporary restraining order or a writ of injunction against the Department of Education, saying its sex lessons were unconstitutional and immoral.

Invoking their right as taxpayers, Clara Rita Padilla and Anita

Visbal, of EnGenderRights, asked QC Regional Trial Court Branch 88 to allow them to take part in the suit, batting for the department to push through with its Adolescent Reproductive Health module.

“Any disruption of the ARH program will prove to be detrimental to the physical, mental, and psychological well-being of children and adolescents in the pilot schools where the program will be implemented,” they said.

“Teaching ARH is one sure way of keeping these children in school and ensuring their graduation and giving them the opportunity to have careers, better employment and increased financial capability,” Padilla noted.

She said focus group discussions with urban poor women showed they started bearing children as early as 14 years old; that young women had up to six children; and men and women 19 to 20 years old who were HIV (human-immuno virus) positive.

Some of the young women, Padilla said, were even involved in prostitution.

She said the petition to bar sex education was legally impaired, being filed in the wrong venue because the DepEd program has not been pilot-tested within the jurisdiction of the QC RTC.

She said teaching ARH modules dated back to 2005.

“And we have been receiving positive feedbacks from principals, parents, teachers and students. There are reports from principals that ever since they have been implementing the ARH modules, there has been a decrease in adolescent pregnancies in their schools,” Padilla said.

“The DepEd ARH program is reasonable. It promotes the rights of children and adolescents and it promotes public health and public interest. The DepEd ARH program is also age-appropriate. The teaching modules cater to the different evolving capacities of children and adolescents.”

Padilla backed the position of the Office of the Solicitor General, representing DepEd officials in the suit, that the petitioners have no legal standing since none of them have children in the schools where the sex-education program is being pilot-tested.

She said since the DepEd program is covered by a contract between the department and the UNPF (UN Population Fund) any delay and prohibition of its implementation will make the government liable for damages for violating contractual obligations. –Roy Pelovello, Manila Standard Today