Philippines urgently needs law to help stem adolescent pregnancies, experts say

“Mae” (not her real name), a Filipina from a village north of Manila, has a 2-year-old daughter whom she gave birth to when she was 13 years old.

Having received no sex education at school – she was in the sixth grade two years ago – or from her family, she said she was unaware of the consequences of having unprotected sex. 

For “Mae,” those consequences include quitting school to take care of her infant. Now 15, she does not know if and when she could continue her education. 

“Mae” requested that BenarNews identify her only by a pseudonym because she wanted to retain her privacy.

Around 500 adolescents give birth every day in the Philippines, which prompted the government in 2019 to declare adolescent pregnancies “a national social emergency.”

While the latest data from 2022 included mostly 15- to 19-year-old mothers, it pointed to an alarming emerging trend -- a 35% rise from a year earlier in the numbers of 10- to 14-year-olds becoming pregnant.

Therefore, the situation is still and will remain a social emergency “unless significant and targeted interventions are put in place,” according to Vivien Martin, director of sponsorships for Save the Children Philippines.

“The data shows [teenage pregnancies] have not been adequately addressed by current policies and programs,” Martin told BenarNews.

The high numbers of teenagers becoming mothers is mainly because they lack access to reproductive health services amid conservative opposition and poor regulations, Philippine child rights activists and health experts said.

They added that it was urgently necessary for the Philippine Senate to pass a bill it recently discussed that would increase teenagers’ access to contraception, expand sex education, and devise effective programs that reach communities that need them the most, among other remedies.

Lolito Tacordon, deputy director of a Philippine government agency, the Commission on Population and Development, called the situation “alarming” and explained why high numbers of adolescent births constitute a social emergency for the country.

“Adolescent pregnancy is a social issue that has long-term irreversible individual and societal impacts,” Tacordon told BenarNews.

Those who give birth so young are then caught in “a vicious cycle of intergenerational poverty,” she said.

Tacordon described the ripple effect. 

Childbearing in adolescence carries increased risks for poor health outcomes for both mother and child, Tacordon said. 

Additionally, because many of the young mothers may need to leave school to look after their infant, it also leads to lower educational attainment and employability for the group for generations. 

This, in turn, can negatively affect the quality of the country’s labor force and its economic development.

Teenage mothers – and the country – lose lifetime earnings of around 33 billion pesos (U.S. $578 million) from missed opportunities, according to a 2016 study commissioned by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). 

The study assumed the teenage mothers would start earning income at 20, and it defined lost income as the difference between what they would earn without finishing high school compared to what they could have earned – a higher wage – with a high school diploma.

Teenager “Mae’s” neighbor, 18-year-old “Anna,” (not her real name), who is also a mother, seems to have instinctively understood the importance of finishing high school.

“Anna” became a mother at 15, three years ago. The father of the baby wanted her to terminate the pregnancy, but she refused. 

After a brief break to take care of her daughter, the now 18-year-old returned to continue her education and aims to complete high school in two years.

“My dream is to finish college so I can help my mother and secure my child’s future,” “Anna” said. She, too, asked BenarNews not to use her real name, citing concerns for her privacy.

“I tell my siblings and cousins not to follow what I did because being a teenage mom is very difficult. You cannot get your life back.”

“Mae” and “Anna” live in a village called Payatas, which is located in Quezon City, Metro Manila. They said they don’t feel like the odd ones out because there are many young mothers in their community.

These numbers give the Philippines the dubious distinction of having the highest adolescent birth rate among fellow member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, according to the UNFPA.

Although 2022 figures – the latest official data available – show a decline from 2017 in 15-19-year-olds giving birth,  the absolute numbers are so high that the situation is still considered a social emergency, experts said. 

The number of 15- to 19-year-old girls giving birth fell to 5.4% last year from 8.6% in 2017.

The more worrying statistic was the increase in pregnancies among 10- to 14-year-olds.

In this group, girls becoming mothers rose to 3,135 last year from 2,320 in 2021. The absolute number isn’t high, but if it reflects a trend – in the light of the situation among 15- 19-year-olds – it is alarming, say child rights advocates.

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Health experts and advocates have blamed inadequate access to reproductive health education and services such as providing contraceptives to teenagers. Philippine law says those who are 18 and under need parental consent to access birth control.

The rule also applies to mothers who are 18 and under.

These restrictions add to the already high risks of health complications -- including anemia, hemorrhage, low birth weight, and preterm birth -- for the young mothers and their babies,  according to a 2016 UNFPA study. 

Additionally, girls under 15 are twice as likely to die from complications during pregnancy or childbirth, than women between the ages of 20 and 30.

Government data revealed a related concern – a serious one.

Of those adolescent girls who registered their babies’ births, a majority became pregnant from sexual relations with older men – in some cases older by at least 10 years. This reflects the issue of abuse of minors, because the age of consent is 16, experts said.

A complex issue 

Cultural barriers are also factors that contribute to teenage pregnancies.

For instance, child marriage is still practiced in some communities, which consider it part of tradition and culture.

Child marriage was declared illegal only in 2022, and it is difficult to monitor the practice, child advocates said. Local authorities tend to not be informed about the laws, exacerbating the problem, they said.

Just as the government criminalized child marriage only recently, it also raised the minimum age of consent sexual consent from 12 to 16 only two years ago. It was a welcome change, but came too late, advocates said.

Vivien Martin, of Save the Children Philippines, said that another cultural issue arises when  teachers with strong personal beliefs against educating the young about sex refuse to teach school courses on it.

Sex education is called “comprehensive sexuality education,” in the Southeast Asian nation.

“Comprehensive sexuality education gives young people accurate, age-appropriate information about sexuality and their sexual and reproductive health, which is critical for their health and survival,” according to the World Health Organization.

It covers the same topics as sex education but also covers broader issues such as relationships, attitudes towards sexuality, gender relations, among others, according to some experts. 

This is a compulsory course for all public schools, according to an Education Department directive, but because there isn’t a law that mandates the course, private schools don’t have to follow the directive and sometimes, state schools don’t either.

That’s another reason advocates are calling for the passage of the Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Bill, which was approved in the House of Representatives in September 2023 and is currently being debated in the Senate, where it needs to pass a second and third reading.

The draft bill’s provisions seek to strengthen and expand the comprehensive sexuality education program, ensure access to sexual and reproductive health services for adolescents, and provide protection for at-risk and teenage mothers, among other measures.

However, the section of people that needs to be convinced that the bill must be passed and the potential law upheld, experts said, is the one that believes the regulation will teach young children how to have sex or encourage them to do so.