Sex Education

Should our schools be teaching sex education at all? Recently, a Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) Legal Office executive secretary Atty. Jo Imbong and 30 other parents haled the Department of Education (DepEd) to court in filing a class suit against education officials over sex education.This current controversy is about the United Nations Population Fund and Department of Education (DEP-ED) project, which is being piloted this month in primary and high schools and aims to promote safe sex, limit the spread of HIV-AIDS and prevent unwanted pregnancies. Accordingly, the government had planned to implement the program in 159 elementary and high schools this year and that this sex education project covers topics such as reproductive systems and cycles, hygiene, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

According to a website of a religious community, “they are concerned with the manner sex education will be taught to intermediate elementary pupils and high school students, …. and they will continue to mobilize their faithful to be on the lookout for sex education modules being taught in government-run schools.”
When teaching anything, the framework or perspective is crucial. What are we promoting? In this sense, the training of teachers on this project is crucial. One DEP-ED legal official said that last year, sex education was already being taught in our schools under the subject Adolescent Reproductive Health and that then there was no controversy. Education Secretary Mona Valisno said that the teaching modules which will be integrated in other subjects such as science are designed to be scientific and informative and that the modules were written by professionals, including psychologists, who made sure the discussions would be educational and that “they are not designed to titillate prurient interests."

The Webster Dictionary defines prurient as “ having or encouraging an excessive interest in sexual matters.” Because, there is a brewing court case (sub judice), we will have to refrain from discussing on the merits of the case. But, suffice it to say for now that Philippine jurisprudence in defining what is obscene still uses the Miller v. California (37 L.Ed. 2nd 419, 431 1973) as the obscenity test : “Whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest … (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work taken as a whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”


Traditionally, sex education as we know it in the academe, is more discussed in the biological sense and so over time it has evolved to the academic subject sexuality education and thus it is taught more broadly in the sociological and psychological tradition and the subject includes thematic discussions on gender and development and women’s human rights. More, importantly, for girl and boy children, the teaching of the subject has shifted from demographics and population control and numbers towards the recognition of the individual and bodily rights of each human being.

Sexuality and education have much to do with each other. When our social institutions like the academe and the church decide on whether information about our sexuality should be part of our education, this is tantamount to defining the parameters on how much education we must have pertaining to our life, bodily rights, autonomy and general well-being. Who should be responsible for sex education or sexuality education of our children? Should sex education be the sole prerogative of parents? My sense is that whoever is deemed in charge for our children’s education must do so with the best interests of the child as a primary consideration. And, where is the child in this conflict between the social institutions that are supposed to decide for the “best interests of the child”? Should we not be evoking some of the answers from the children whose worldview is constantly evolving?

The First 100 Days For President Elect Noynoy

I am heavily investing myself in a “Noynoy watch” as well as collecting all sorts of unsolicited prescriptions for the first 100 days of President Noynoy. One important set of recommendations comes from the people’s campaign for Noynoy. CODE-NGO, the organization of NGO networks is now crystallizing these proposals from the organizations of thousands of volunteers which helped during the campaign. These proposals are roadmaps on how civil society or the private sector can engage the incoming Noynoy administration. Even as the first 100 days are so called honeymoon days because citizens will be tolerant and generally agreeable, the 100 days set the tone, somehow, for the next six years. A former president said that one should hit the ground running during the one hundred days.

On the economic front, the Arroyo regime has posted a 7.3 growth in gross domestic product during the first quarter. Of course, the lion share of this income or product comes from huge election spending and remittances from abroad. Needless to say, the more important challenge is how this growth can trickle down to the large majority. The latest SWS survey says that one fourth of our people are hungry. Food security is a clear agenda by many sectors. Modernization of agriculture as the foundation for industrial growth is very well understood. Our exports ( electronics and garments) are heavily dependent on imports of raw materials. Our neighbors are into labor intensive exports. Which is why, one major prescription is how civil society can participate in the crafting of the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) for 2010-2016 which must be geared towards the attainment of the millennium development goals (MDGs). Accordingly, the Philippines is one of only three countries worldwide with a 10-year basic education system while the rest of the world is now implementing a 12 year elementary-high school curriculum. Anyway, during the campaign period, then Presidential candidate Noynoy has outlined an education agenda geared towards basic education as an option towards a means of livelihood.

Our economic woes are compounded by the issue of climate change. Our vulnerable sectors in the countryside are still bracing from the effects wrought by the long and drawn out drought. We still have to document the psychological trauma that typhoon Ondoy brought to bear on our children. And so, preparedness is the key through a review of the implementation guidelines of the Climate Change Act of 2009. Drafting of national disaster risk management framework and allocation of resources should be part of the 100 days as we cannot afford another national trauma.

On the social infrastructure front, one order of the day is the long overdue passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. President Noynoy should certify this bill as urgent or a priority of his administration. CODE-NGO has also proposed that “while working for the approval of the FOI bill, an executive order providing guidelines on access to public information with similar provisions to the proposed law should be issued.”

On the political front, the word is people’s participation and how to transform the people’s campaign into a people’s government. As defined by leaders of the people’s campaign for Noynoy, a people’s government, is “ a government that will look at people as partners in nation building; one which will operate on the principles of genuine participation, transparency and accountability and social justice. Without such principles, true partnership for reform will not be possible. “ These are big words but in practical terms, one proposal is to reconstitute the local development councils and one fourth of its membership should come from the private sector. The head of local government units must respect this process as this is a venue where the citizenry can demand good governance such as delivery of services. For the regional development councils (RDC), the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) is facilitating the accreditation of private sector organizations and the sectors the organizations are representing.

The presumptive president elect Noynoy cannot fail in the one hundred days as the above prescriptions are very “doable” and very long overdue.

Agenda Under President Elect Noynoy

This is the season for firming up of executive and legislative agendas both at the national and local levels. I will start with the national level which has been our clarion call in our Change Politics Movement ( CPM). This set of criteria came out in our movement’s national video conference exactly one year before this year’s May 10 elections.

The first strategic issue that President Noynoy should immediately address is to immediately stop the plunder of the public coffers. One of the major causes of our poverty is “drainage” of our public funds to corruption. The yellow movement ran on the slogan “Kung Walang Corrupt, walang mahirap” so the nation is expecting that policies, laws and institutions will be reviewed and reformed towards stopping the well entrenched ways of plunder of the public coffers.

Second is to rebuild and strengthen democratic institutions. After almost a quarter of a century of what I consider as the Camelot years during the Cory era, rebuilding and strengthening of damaged institutions are indicated again. An auspicious start should be in the three branches of government by making sure that checks and balances are in place. In the legislature, laws are passed based on the so called numbers and based on our experience the tyranny of the majority has been proven true many times. Which is why, in the coming Congress, the women’s movement, for instance will have to pursue with more vigor the passage of the Reproductive health bill. Why should our men in Congress be afraid to promote the health and well being of our women?

Third is to raise sufficient resources & ensure proper allocation & spending of public resources for priority programs. Implementing our tax code is a big first step.. Basic infrastructure for the rural areas will foster investments by the private sector which will, in turn, generate employment.

Fourth is to raise productivity ( especially in rural areas) & ensure fair distribution of assets of production, benefits and public funds. Faithful implementation of a comprehensive land reform law is a very big step and the allocation of funds for the modernization of our agriculture and fisheries sectors should be part of this.

Fifth is to ensure social protection for the poorest and disadvantaged communities. The NGO sector has worked on this for several decades now and so government must coordinate with the basic sectors through NGOs. The mechanism for this is well written in the National Anti Poverty Commission ( NAPC) Law.

Sixth is to set the foundation for restoring the peace track with armed parties. The Philippines has one of the longest running insurgency problems in the world and we have had many lessons learned which can guide us to new untried pathways.

To summarize, the main points of these agendas are about transparency and good governance, empowerment of basic sectors, reformed system of civil service bureaucracy, a review whether a constitutional reform through elected constitutional convention delegates is indicated at this point in time, asset reform, social safety nets for the poor, health, a feminist population policy, education, building peace by pursuing and sustaining the peace process with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army/National Democratic Front (CPP/NPA/NDF), and the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa-Mindanao (RPMM), promoting sustainable economic development through reforms in the management of our natural resources and agricultural sector, strengthening the local economy by supporting micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), promoting fiscal and tax reforms by directing the lump sum allocations and “discretionary funds,” i.e. Priority Development Assistance Fund or PDAF, President's Social Fund, etc. ( pork barrel) to local governments, supporting measures that propose the inclusion of magnitude and incidence of poverty in the determination of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), increasing government revenues and conducting a debt audit by forming a Congressional Debt Audit Commission that will scrutinize all public debt and contingent liabilities.