The petitioners of the controversial sex education program of the Department of Education (DepEd) withdrew their suit against its inclusion in the local education system to allow Education Secretary Armin Luistro evaluate the program and take appropriate actions.
In open court hearing, petitioners led by lawyer Jo Imbong asked Quezon City Regional Trial Court, Branch 88, Judge Rosanna Fe Romero Maglaya to dismiss the case, vowing to re-file the petition if Luistro decides to continue with the implementation of the sex education program without addressing the concerns their petition has raised.
“We can only ascribe all good faith on the part of Secretary Luistro. We, however, hope that he will come up with an enlightened assessment of the program,” Imbong said.
“We ask the court to dismiss the case in the meantime without prejudice to re-filing the case in the event that Secretary Luistro decides to continue with the program of DepEd on sex education as formulated by Sec. (Mona)Valisno,” she added.
Maglaya granted the motion of the petitioners as the lawyers of the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) which represented the respondent DepEd officials, did not raise any objections.
The petitioners have raised concerns about the inclusion in the DepEd program of artificial family planning methods, which the Catholic Church strongly opposes.
Imbong, who served as head of legal office of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, is consultant to the CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on Family and Life and the Office on Women.
She added that there is also a technical problem with their petition because respondent Valisno is no longer the DedEd secretary and so whatever ruling the court makes on the case can not bind the department adding amending the petition and implicating Luistro is unfair to the new DepEd secretary.
“To continue with the case by immediately impleading Secretary Luistro as substitute respondent in place of Secretary Valisno will be tantamount to speculating that he will do what Sec. Valisno had done. We do not think this is proper,” Imbong said.
However, lawyer Clara Rita Padilla, a representative of a group advocating women and reproductive rights who intervened in the case, said Luistro should push through with the implementation of the program.
She cited a 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey which showed that there are 47 births for every 1,000 women aged 15-19 and that there is a rising trend of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infections in the 15-24 age group.
Last July 5, Maglaya denied the temporary restraining order sought by the petitioners, saying they failed to show “their clear and unmistakable right alleged to have been violated to entitle them to the relief prayed for.”
“None of the petitioners were able to show that the children who maybe subject of the assailed program are students of said pilot schools,” she said.
Although she junked the petition for TRO, Maglaya said her court will still hear the merits of the case with respect to the petitioner’s plea for a writ of preliminary injunction, which would practically impose a ban on the program.
DepEd is pilot testing the teaching of sex education program—integrated in regular subjects–in 80 public high schools and 79 public elementary schools in various parts of the country, out of a total of over 47,000 public schools. –CHITO A. CHAVEZ, Manila Bulletin
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