Reality check
On my first day of working for a school that serves impoverished students, life did not lose one second bursting the social bubble that 10 years of elite Jesuit institutions enclosed me in. A slightly vexed teen-age girl approached one of my co-teachers asking if she could talk to her. They spoke about a topic that I was used to hearing in whispers. The girl was pregnant, thanks to another student of ours.
“I was thinking of aborting the baby,” stated the girl.
“Remember that we are talking about a life and that whatever the choice you are facing must be a decision between you, your boyfriend, and your families” advised the teacher, matter-of-factly.
I recall this because that instance of conversation points out one basic fact. When teen-agers are in deep trouble and would want to seek advice from someone older and hopefully wiser, they do not go to their parents out of fear. Rather, their only access to an adult, who could give sound advice without fear of being threatened and who are always readily there for them, is their teachers.
One can’t help but wonder then the relevance of the Catholic teaching that the family is the exclusive center of education about sexuality and morality, meaning that sex education is the fundamental right and sole obligation of parents.
It is sound advice in a world where children get consistent support from parents who had been raised that way and educated about how to establish a good family. A context where everything in the home is regulated — the very same background where most of the priests and bishops who conceptualized the Church teachings hail from.
Not so much in a reality where parents are rarely present, both physically and psychologically, because of the “isang kahig, isang tuka” lives that they live. Much worse, not in environments where parents have given up the desire to survive and turn to alcohol and drugs as escape from the nightmares they could not wake up from. Most of the time, it is these parents that betray the trust of their children and become the very source of life-long sexual trauma.
Perhaps it is because of these tragic facts of life that DepEd Secretary Mona Valisno thought of implementing a pilot study of sex education classes in elementary and secondary public schools. Almost immediately, Bishop Pedro Quitorio of the CBCP laid out his objections about the study. The truth of the matter is, what the DepEd is proposing is a watered-down version of sex education. First, it is just a pilot study and second, DepEd admits, the program is not strictly sex education because for the most part, it does not even tackle the sexual act, but rather awareness about the parts of the body, rights of children, and information about sexually-transmitted diseases.
The Church’s answer to these is that the more exposure the students get about sex, the greater their tendency to participate in “unchaste” acts. The premise of the argument being when the students go to school, they are a blank slate with regard to sex. Is not the opposite true? That, thanks to the Internet, teen-agers are very much exposed to sex, in fact, maybe much more exposed than their teachers are. It has always been pointed out in academic circles that the teacher is no longer the source of information, but rather the facilitator of information, where the primary objective is to guide and inform the students about what to do with the massive information available to them at a mouse-click.
Instead of fighting back, DepEd broadcasted that it is willing to work with the Catholic Church in choosing the content of the modules and implementing program. In reality, the Church in the Philippines has a lot to be happy about as a move like this will certainly be frowned upon in other countries. DepEd’s call is a challenge to the Church officials to think of other solutions regarding the growing problem of teen-age sex and sexual abuse other than the usual weekly sermons the youth hear in church, which is, by the way, actually a popular dating place for them.
The Church has always complained about a secularized world where God and the Church are slowly becoming marginalized. Reflecting on how the Church is reacting to sex ed, perhaps, the Church also is partly at fault as it has responded inadequately to the challenges and problems of modern times. DepEd’s invitation to a dialogue is not a call to revamp enlightened Church doctrine. Rather, it is a chance of a lifetime for the clergy to give a practical interpretation of these teachings and make the Church relevant in the modern world.
