NEWS | Philippines posts alarming rise in teenage pregnancies, gov’t urged to intensify response
By Alexandra Kate Ramirez
The Philippines recorded a continuing rise in teenage pregnancies since 2011, the Commission on Population and Development (PopCom) reported on Sunday, February 7. According to the commission, one in three births among Filipino minors took place in the regions of Region IV-A, National Capital Region (NCR), and Central Luzon. Consequently, lawmakers emphasized the need for comprehensive reproductive health (RH) education as well as the improvement of maternal and family planning services.
Gauging the baby boom
Citing the latest data from the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA), PopCom revealed in a statement that the number of Filipino minors who became young mothers in 2019 rose to 62,510 from 62,341 in the previous year.
Additionally, PopCom reported that births among girls aged 14 and below increased by 7% in 2019 compared to last year’s figure, as provided by the PSA. With 2,411 adolescent girls aged 10–14 who gave birth in 2019 alone, which translated to seven births per day, the country saw a three-fold increase from the year 2000 — when only 755 births from the same age group were recorded.
The highest number of births among minors was logged in Calabarzon with a total of 8,008, followed by the NCR with 7,546, and Central Luzon with 7,523. As for the regions outside Luzon, Northern Mindanao recorded 4,747 births, followed by the Davao region with 4,551, and Central Visayas with 4,541.
Furthermore, the commission announced that 130,000 babies from women aged below 20 were fathered by men who were 20 years of age or older.
“The dramatic rise in teen pregnancies is a health emergency and a social injustice in and of itself. I support the Commission of Population (PopCom) in their call for the government to declare this a social emergency,” Sen. Risa Hontiveros remarked.
Proposed legislative measures
Since 2019, PopCom has been urging the president to officially declare the surge in adolescent pregnancies as a national and social crisis. As the cases of teenage pregnancies continued to rise at an alarming rate across the archipelago, PopCom executive director Juan Antonio Perez III called on private sectors and local government units (LGUs) alike to collaborate closely with the commission in addressing this crisis.
Sen. Hontiveros, chair of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality, subsequently renewed her call for the passage of Senate Bill №161, or the Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Bill, filed in July 2019. It seeks to establish social protection programs for teenage parents, including maternal services, as well as provide a comprehensive and age-appropriate RH education for the Filipino youth.
Calling for a more aggressive government response to the alarming rise in teenage pregnancies, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, chair of the Senate committee on basic education, also filed Senate Bill 1985 that seeks to institutionalize the Parent Effective Service Program in every barangay and municipality. The bill seeks to aid parents and parent substitutes alike in enhancing their knowledge, skills, and attitude in parenting, as the country also witnessed a growing number of young mothers who are trapped in poverty.
Gatchalian also emphasized the urgency to amend the law on statutory rape, noting that teenage mothers are vulnerable to sexual abuse. In Senate Bill №739, he proposed to raise the age of sexual consent to 18 years old as a means of running after abusers who victimize young girls.
Meanwhile, Sen. Nancy Binay also filed a resolution urging the Senate to probe the alarming increase of teenage pregnancy in the country. In her Resolution №650, Binay cited the registered cases of two 10-year-olds who gave birth as recorded by the PSA and the drastic impact of early pregnancy on a young girl’s life according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA).
“Her education may end and her job prospects diminish. She becomes more vulnerable to poverty and exclusion, and her health often suffers,” stated Binay, adding that pregnancy and childbirth complications are the leading causes of death among young girls.
Inadequate RH education and services
According to the UNPFA and the University of the Philippines’ Population Institute (UPPI), the cases of teenage pregnancies in the country may increase by 18,000 due to the limited services during the quarantine.
On top of that, the unmet need for family planning may lead to a whopping 67% increase from 2019, which would result in about 2.07 million women who do not want to get pregnant or who desire to opt for birth spacing but could not avail permanent or temporary contraception.
PopCom regional director Lydio Español Jr. said that despite the decline in figures within Metro Manila, the cases of 10-year-olds giving birth should sound the alarm for all local government units to harmonize their efforts for stronger and better initiatives on adolescent reproductive health.
“The pandemic has not only worsened the difficulty of [getting] prenatal and other maternal services but also family planning services that is very crucial in mitigating cases of early pregnancies,” Español Jr. stated.
Furthermore, Roots of Health executive director Amina Evangelista Swanepoel asserted that adolescents in rural areas struggle with distinct challenges due to the blank inaccessibility of basic services.
She reiterated that these people were only taught as much as how a sperm cell meets an egg cell in school, thereby leaving out most of the crucial information, such as the context of how those cells were able to interact in the first place. Moreover, various advocates also noted that young people remained struggling in accessing birth control services and other RH-related facilities due to the existing stigma surrounding sex and pleasure.
“Nobody wants to deal with the fact that young people are having sex. I just feel like if we just accept that, and stop with the narrative that we’re a conservative culture, if you look at the data, we’re really not…. If we keep pretending that it’s not an issue, hindi natututukan,” Swanepoel asserted.
