Teenage pregnancy cases alarm Davao legislator

DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / May 28, 2014) - A member of the local legislative council has expressed alarm over the rising teenage pregnancy in Davao City and the country as well, and joined calls to advance the rights and welfare of women and girls for a comprehensive, accessible and people-oriented health care. Councilor Leah Librado, who heads the Committee on Women, Children and Family Relations, said the rise of teenage pregnancy is a microcosm of the bigger problem resulted from poor state of health and education in the country. "This is not only a reproductive issue as there is an underlying socioeconomic and political issues we need to address here," she said. According to Philippine Institute of Development Studies, the country is far behind in reaching its Millennium Development Goal target by year 2015 in providing better access on reproductive health. It said the country only achieved 3.3% far from its 8.6% target. "I can see the need to strengthen the information drive with regards to teenage pregnancy perhaps, include in the school curriculum the subject pertaining to Adolescent Health Care. The schools must also be encouraged to boost their guidance counseling mechanism as this would help teenagers to process their thoughts and emotions with regards to adolescent sexuality, behaviors and relationships,” Librado said. Librado also stressed the need to fully implement the local Reproductive Health bill version - the Women Health Care Clinic Ordinance of Davao City which was approved in 2010. The ordinance, she said, aims to provide reproductive health care which include adolescent and youth health services and education and counseling on sexuality, sexual and reproductive health. It mandates the creation of a Women Health Care Clinic under a Special Health Services Division of the City Health Office. The clinic is expected to develop and undertake reproductive health programs for adolescents including information that will enable them to understand their sexuality and sexual responsibility. Librado said the city has enough laws, but what we need is to implement the them to materialize its objectives. She said there are also laws that need to updated and amended. "I am amenable to the need of revisiting our Women’s Development Code because this was approved ahead of national laws like the Magna Carta of Women, RA 9262 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and Chiclren law and the Republic Act 10354, or the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act of 2012. Subsequently, we need to update and reconcile those laws with our own WDC." "Not only today that we show our action to assert our rights for health, everyday we need to safeguard that right because this is our basic human rights," she said.//