IN OCTOBER 2019, the Commission on Population and Development (PopCom) urged the President to declare teen pregnancy a national emergency.
A few days ago, the President issued Executive Order (EO) 141 acknowledging the seriousness of the matter.
The data on adolescent pregnancy in the Philippines is alarming. The 2018 figures from the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) recorded a total of 183,967 live births among adolescents aged 10-19 years old in 2018. This is equivalent to 504 live births per day in the aforementioned age group. Adolescent Birth Rate remains high at 47 per 1,000 births in the country.
In 2017, the National Demographic and Health Survey showed that nine percent of girls aged 15-19 years old have begun childbearing. Pregnancy and childbirth-related mortality and morbidity remain a key challenge to be addressed in the Philippines – especially as other research revealed that in the Asia Pacific, maternal mortality for a 15-year old girl remains high at 1 in 190 in 2017.
EO 141 acknowledges that what causes teen pregnancy are “endangered patterns of discrimination, deep-seated norms and attitudes that normalize and justify violence against women and children, lack of information and education, and the vulnerability and exclusion of women and children living in remote and rural areas.” It calls for a carefully coordinated, rationalized efforts of concerned government agencies to reduce the number of young girls giving birth.
Maternal mortality and morbidity directly impair a woman’s right to life, to be equal in dignity, to education, to her role in nation-building, and to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including sexual and reproductive health and rights. For adolescent pregnant mothers, these also impair their vital role in nation-building both as women and as young Filipinos.
It is good that the national government is making this urgent concern a national priority. This is already a national social emergency.
