Saturday, June 19, 2010

Kopi talk No need for legislation

Without waiting for a law, the government has started a pilot project to teach basic sex education in elementary schools, starting in fifth grade when the typical student is entering puberty. The pilot program does not include information on contraception or safe sex. Instead it aims to teach adolescents about their reproductive system and the changes that their bodies undergo on the way to adulthood.

Similar lessons have been taught for years in certain exclusive private schools, and at an earlier level, usually in fourth grade. The introduction of the sex education program in fifth grade could be a response to opposition to the initial plan of starting the program among younger children. But the opposition did not stop the Department of Education from implementing the program, which is backed by the United Nations Population Fund, starting this school year in 80 public elementary and 79 high schools.

Last February, the Department of Health also ignored opposition from certain quarters and the absence of a reproductive health law and started distributing condoms, initially to men buying flowers for Valentine’s Day in Manila. The government had long made contraceptives accessible to the public, without the need for a specific law, but the family planning program was suspended throughout most of the nine and a half years of the Arroyo administration.

The two recent moves, implemented only in the final moments of the outgoing administration, should show the incoming one that there are many things the executive can do without the need for an enabling law. Legislators, always with an eye to re-election or their replacement by their relatives, do not want to risk their political future by incurring the ire of the Church. But the landslide win of a presidential candidate who supported the reproductive health bill is just the latest proof that when it comes to state matters in this country, the Church wields little influence over the electorate.

The next step for the incoming administration is to simply implement, through executive power, policies and programs that would give adults access to information on family planning. Women particularly in impoverished communities should have access to information on their reproductive rights — something that educated women with financial means enjoy. Apart from promoting maternal health, such information can help prevent unwanted pregnancies and abortions. Saving lives, improving the quality of life, and giving people accurate information about their bodies need not wait for legislation.