Teenage pregnancy.. Tolerated for EFA sake!

By: Claire Sedigo

Teenage pregnancy is a prominent dilemma in our country because it continues to place

adolescent into delinquency. What would be the impact of early pregnancy to the youth in
general?
Teenage pregnancy rates in most countries are declining. The numbers are rising in the
Philippines. It is one of the major factors that affect population growth. It is considered one of
the problems the government facing today.
Teenage pregnancy is a situation which involves female adolescent aged 19 or younger.
Some of the causes of teenage pregnancy is lack parental guidance, inadequate knowledge about
sex education, exploitation by older men, teenage drinking and sexual abuse or rape.
What would be the impact of early pregnancy case in our economy?
Increase rate of earl pregnancy can lead to increase of unemployment rate in the
Philippines. Studies show that teenagers who experience early pregnancy may tend not finish
their studies. Hence, poverty level in the Philippines may also blooms
According to reports, about 500 Filipino teenagers become mother every day. That’s
about 182-500 teenage mothers every year.
In Zamboanga City, in 2017, 52 girls gave birth at ages 10-13,552 at ages 14-16 and
2,645at ages 17-19 with a total of 3,249 teenage mother.
In the district of Vitali in 2018, statistics show that there are three girls who gave birth at
the age of 10-14, 10 girls aging 15-16 and 49 girls aging of 17-19 with the total of 62 teenage
mothers.
Isn’t it alarming and disturbing for the parents as well as teachers because aside from the
fact knowing that these children/students aging 10-15 are less likely to be physically developed
enough to sustain a healthy pregnancy. Therefore, putting the life of the soon to be a mother and
the incoming child into a very upsetting situation. Of course not to forget the soon to be father
and his family as well are all in unpleasant situation.
It is apparently so obvious that when a girl has engaged herself to premarital sex, not early
pregnancy is possible but also early marriage. And eventually future is gonna be doomed for both of them
and their soon to be child. Who are we going to blame for the increasing rate of early pregnancy in our
own community; in our own school? Is the parent for the so “ called lack of parental guidance”, or is it
the teachers for not really teaching the students “sex education”?
It was just so ironic to think that years back “ sex education “ is not taught in school; it wasn’t
part in the curriculum, yet, seldom we could hear any cases of teenage pregnancy in school.
Parents long time ago do not either tolerate such thing because for them it is a disgrace to
the family when it happened and so not much of this issue is heard before.
What went wrong to this generation? Are they just really misguided or just tolerated?