Undue infringements

Something is really wrong when government agencies are adopting measures based on a legislation that has not even been passed by Congress yet. This is what the Department of Education (DepEd) under outgoing Secretary Mona Valisno is doing in her last few days in office when she issued DepEd Memo 261 integrating the subject of sex education in the basic elementary school curriculum.

Actually, DepEd Memo 261 contains one of the salient features of the proposed Reproductive Health bill. Indeed in her latest clarification about her memo, Secretary Valisno calls it “the integration of the reproductive health lessons in the basic education curriculum”. The UN defines reproductive health as the state of physical, mental, and social well-being of persons and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity in all matters relating to their reproductive system and to its functions and processes. It states that people have the right to “satisfying and safe sex life”. The RH bill uses the same definition and statement.

Hence, this idea of sex education, once upon a time also called “population education”, and now more attractively denominated as “life skills-based” education that will supposedly enlighten Filipino children about sexuality, is ultimately aimed at providing for a “satisfying and safe sex”. In other words, the introduction of sex education in schools anticipates the possibility of sexual relationships that may intensify the sexual urge. And if the sexual urge has to be satisfied, it must be done “safely”.

Safe sex here apparently means two things: first, not contracting or becoming infected with deadly and transmissible sexual diseases like HIV/AIDS which really appears to be necessary and desirable; and secondly, not getting pregnant or having more mouths to feed which is blamed as the cause of poverty in this land and thus still highly debatable.

To promote satisfying and safe sex, a full range of contraceptive methods, techniques, services, devices and pills have to be made available by the government. This move would have been alright except that as already proven time and again, these contraceptives are not totally safe as they do not fully prevent getting infected with sexually transmissible diseases and they have various ill effects that endanger the health and well-being especially of the wife.

Besides, having a satisfying sex life may also result in unwanted pregnancies causing mental anguish that will negatively affect the person’s mental and social well being. And since reproductive health also means the mental and social well being of a person, access not only to contraception but also to abortion should be allowed. Indeed some of the contraceptives made available are medically proven to be abortive products.

But even without delving into the morality of contraception and the use of contraceptives, the more objectionable part here is that the big multi-national pharmaceutical companies which produce and market these contraceptives are the ones which will benefit most as they stand to earn a lot more money from all these government moves. In fact by making available these contraceptives the government will have to purchase them with funds derived from the taxpayers that will only enrich even more these conglomerates. Ultimately this sex education business will only improve the economic condition of these companies, not the economic condition of our people.

To be sure there is already a sex education program being implemented here funded by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA). For all intents and purposes, this is an undue intrusion into our sovereignty as a nation. UNFPA has in effect infringe on the policy making body of our nation with this action. And in so doing it has actually violated the natural right and duty of parents in the moral development of our children. It is really quite appalling how this can be done and why nobody has questioned it.

Fortunately, a group of parents headed by Atty. Jo Imbong finally acquired the guts to question this anomalous situation. Last June 21, 2010 they filed a case in Quezon City RTC. She said that the suit they filed not only assails DepEd Memo 261 and asserts their rights as families but “points a finger at the forces that are reshaping the hearts and minds of our children”… as well as “brings together parents who want to pull the plug and stop the devices that are capturing our children when we are not there to hold their hand”.

In presenting their case against sex education Atty. Imbong has this to say, “What has sex education done to us since these were planted into the educational system 30 years ago? From a culture that cherishes children, robust families, decency, integrity of the body, respect for parents, holy fear of God, the person in the street today thinks that couples should have only two children, that we are almost bursting at the seams because of “unwanted pregnancies”, that morality is relative and sex can be a topic for group dynamics in the classroom.

Why do many youngsters today trifle with their bodies? Why do most couples today choose not to marry? Why do many marriages fail? Why are we governed by policies that are hostile to new births, and why have birthrates in this country significantly decreased?

Our young population has metamorphosed into an age whose mindset is a refusal of moral limitations in the sphere of human sexuality. In an environment where one hears and sees condom ads on primetime programming every single day, where ads splash contraceptives in the guise of “family planning” — it is almost impossible for young people to assume the enduring sacrifices on which stable marriages and families built. And the system is almost succeeding. After all, the sex education program is designed, according to DepEd Memo 261 “to change the lifestyle, behavior, attitudes and values of Filipino children on sexuality”. In other words, to draw the hearts and soul of our children into the vortex of a contraceptive imperialism”. –Jose C. Sison (The Philippine Star)