CBCP slams DepEd for sneaking sex education into HS curriculum

A ranking official of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) accused the Department of Education (DepEd) of introducing sex education in the high school curriculum under the guise of reproductive health programs.

According to San Fernando, Pampanga Archbishop Paciano Aniceto, the CBCP had discovered the DepEd was trying to sneak the teaching of the controversial subject to high school students into a module called "Adolescent Reproductive Health and Reproductive Rights" (ARHRR).

Aniceto, chairman of the CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on Family and Life (ECFL), claimed the DepEd was trying to circumvent the objection made by the CBCP on government efforts to teach sex education to adolescents and students at a very young age.

"To allow sex education in the classroom is risking the students moral and spiritual well-being. What is information for one may be a corruption of the others," Aniceto said.

The Pampanga bishop expressed his opinion that parents should be responsible for teaching their children about sexual matters.

"The Catholic Church teaches that sex education is the sole right and responsibility of parents and no excuse or alibi can justify the public teaching of sex education by strangers," Aniceto said.

"Although the students may be of similar ages, their exposure to sex and related matters are never the same," he said.

Parents should not feel awkward when they talk about the subject to their children.

When parents educate their children about sexual intercourse, it should be done as an internalization of family values and promoted within the context of marriage and not "as an extra-curricular activity," Aniceto said.

"Sexuality must be taught in the context of the marital union, not as a mere subject in a classroom which is devoid of values and total absence of the context of marriage, but as part of their maturation in the family," he said.

Instead of DepEd presenting modules on sex education to high school students, Aniceto suggested the government should develop modules that would teach the parents on how they should explain the topic to their children.

"Even our Constitution guarantees parents this right. It cannot be superseded by any artificially concocted rights like reproductive rights," he said.

The CBCP said the ARHRR lesson guide integrates the concepts in subjects such as health, English, Filipino, science, technology, livelihood education and araling panlipunan.

Meanwhile, a ranking administration lawmaker claimed the DepEd would be on the losing end with the reenactment of last year’s national budget.

According to Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas some of the education-related items such as the retraining of teachers for English, math and science subjects at P581 million will be deferred due to the failure of the approval of the 2006 national budget.

He pointed out that the construction of 4,578 new classrooms at P2.9 billion will also be deferred and the hiring of 9,200 additional teachers at P2.7 billion would have to be postponed.

The tuition subsidy of P2 billion for some 475,000 underprivileged secondary students forced to enroll in private schools due to inadequate public school facilities will be deferred, along with the distribution of 18.1 million English textbooks at P1.8 billion outlay.

Gullas added the nutrition support programs for 2.5 million grade school pupils at P1.5 billion will have to be suspended under the reenactment of last year’s national budget.

"These and other crucially important items could not possibly be adequately funded by the 2005 budget of P907.6 billion, under which the government has been operating since January," Gullas said.

Gullas pointed out the in-service training of public school teachers and the distribution of new English textbooks are particularly essential to reverse the deteriorating English skills of students.

He said the training would provide an initial batch of 25,000 teachers three weeks of university-based special instruction to reinforce their expertise in English, math and science subjects.

The DepEd earlier blamed the deficient instruction of public school teachers for the rapid decline of student proficiency in the three major subjects.

"Strong command of English, math and science is absolutely necessary for our students — future labor participants — to stay globally competitive," Gullas said.

He said the results of the last national achievement test showed that elementary and high school students had mastery levels of only 45 percent to 60 percent in the three subjects.

This is well below the DepEd required minimum mastery level of 75 percent, Gullas stressed.

The Cebu lawmaker, as author of a bill reinstating English as the medium of instruction in schools, also cited a DepEd study showing that only 19 out of every 100 teachers had the confidence and competence to teach subjects in English. — With Sandy Araneta