Senate Bill (SB) 1979, or the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill, is an act that directly prioritizes education and protection for adolescent parents, but yet again, we are faced with the obsolescence of a Senate so reluctant to answer to the plea of this national emergency.
With the country seeing an exponential increase in adolescent pregnancies, children not even in their teens and repeated pregnancies within these numbers, there has never been a time as dire as this to address the problem at the root.
The Commission on Population and Development (CPD) has expressed an urgent concern on the rise of total live births by young girls aged 10-19. Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), these adolescent births saw an alarming hike of 10.2% from 2021 to 2022 alone. CPD Executive Director Lisa Grace S. Bersales has been advocating for the bill’s enactment, emphasizing that these numbers are manifestations of social injustices and the deprivation of opportunities.
The question is—how do we even begin to impel the enactment of a bill to a Senate from which seven out of 18 signatures have been withdrawn amidst outright misconceptions, let alone the nation’s very own president fear mongering the bill’s provisions?
BBM vs. the woke mind virus
Nothing is foolproof in a country whose president uses the word “woke” in response to the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill.
In a statement President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. or BBM made to reporters in reaction to SB 1979, he promises to veto the bill due to the “woke that is being brought into our system,” this being teaching children about masturbation and having a right to a spectrum of sexualities. In the same breath, he claimed he read the bill in detail. None of these provisions he slams are present in the bill.
It is becoming increasingly difficult not to catastrophize the state of our nation and see the pipeline we are going down. We have at our hands a chance to build an environment that protects adolescents from unplanned pregnancies and the consequences of it, a chance to fasten the unmet need of knowledge on and access to family planning, a chance to legislatively confront patriarchal violence and child marriage, and lo and behold, BBM denounces it because of its “woke” ideologies.
What a literary perspective reveals
Let’s really understand his denunciation here. In his statement, BBM used “woke” in parallel with the bill being appalling and “abhorrent,” but do we even really know what “woke” means and the sinister implications of this word having a negative connotation in the vocabulary of our president?
The etymology of “woke” can be traced back to African American Vernacular English (AAVE), starting as a byword for being socially aware, but quickly becoming linked with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement after the shooting of Michael Brown. It was a description for those who were aware of these racial and societal injustices, and it became a call to voice out and act against bigotry.
Today, the word has gained broader definitions, but it still goes back to a degree of social awareness and activism. It is used popularly in a negative connotation by notorious figures such as Andrew Tate, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump.
Therefore, is BBM strongly against the protections and funds that SB 1979 can provide? Or shall we entertain the possibility of it being more nuanced than that?
Marriage, family, and fear mongering
The bill, particularly the section on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE), is disapproved similarly by groups such as Project Dalisay, an initiative by the National Coalition for the Family and the Constitution (NCFC) that promotes an alternate sex education that upholds the institution of marriage. In a video uploaded on Facebook, Project Dalisay claims that CSE will refer to European standards, that it will teach children about bodily pleasure, that it is unconstitutional, and the like.
The CSE section of the bill aims for the development and promotion of educational materials for schools, communities, and other youth institutions. It emphasizes that it shall be compulsorily integrated at all levels, medically accurate, age and developmentally appropriate, culturally sensitive, and rights-based.
The principal author of the bill, Sen. Risa Hontiveros, was quick to debunk Project Dalisay and BBM’s claims, asserting that the bill does not contain anything remotely close to the concepts of masturbation or “trying other sexualities.” Despite that, Sen. Hontiveros has still expressed respect for the senators who withdrew their signatures and is more than willing to file a substitute bill that will set the record straight and leave no room for misinterpretation.
What I am struggling to comprehend is how, in the first place, SB 1979 was misinterpreted. The truth of the matter is that the opposition cannot find it in themselves to admit that they live by extremely conservative notions of sex, cowering at the thought of adolescents learning about anything more than anatomy and adolescent parents being protected. Project Dalisay hails, “Abstinence pa rin ang the best.” Abstinence is not an option for victims of sexual violence and child marriage, and it should not even take these crimes for us to support CSE and the safeguarding of adolescent parents.
The concept of “saving sex for marriage” being the end-all be-all sits up there with purity culture. This is not to say that it is wrong to do so, but to denounce anything else otherwise enforces that sex is only for the conception of a child within marriage—it is heteronormative, puritan, and simply unrealistic. It is high time for us to open our minds and admit that adolescents will express and explore themselves sexually—it is CSE that will prevent unplanned pregnancies, strip away the taboo associated with sex, protect adolescent parents, and make it easier for us to talk about the national emergency befalling us.
Empty words, endless questions
In the same statement, BBM emphasized the importance of sex education, of learning about the consequences of unplanned pregnancy and the prevalence of HIV. With that said, I ask, what exactly will vetoing SB 1979 do for these sentiments? If not SB 1979, what is the alternative? Or is this yet another one of the countless tantrums and lashings that Hontiveros faces?
Denouncing the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill and postponing it any further is simply criminal. If this bill does not make it past BBM’s coldhearted promise, we leave the disaster that is teenage pregnancy hanging again, leaving adolescent parents with no support and subject to repeated pregnancies. We leave teens resorting to treating sex as a practice of restraint, and we leave those who choose to engage unprotected and uneducated—we fail to build the foundation that protects victims of abuse and child marriage.
BBM, this is not a parade of words that dissipate in the air. This is not woke versus right—we do not live in The Matrix. The nation you lead is in crisis, and the people are looking for you, and yet, we are not at all surprised by your inaction. It is way past the right time to sound the alarm on the state we are being left in, on how neglected we are as a people. In our abandon, all we can do now is gather and amplify our voices into one.
We have no room for individualism—it is up to us to face fear, let go of our comforts, and stay woke!
