BARANGAYS Mambaling and Inayawan in Cebu City are now regarded as “areas of concern” in Central Visayas after logging the highest cases of teenage pregnancy in 2022.
The report caught Barangay Captain Gines Abellana of Mambaling and Barangay Captain Kirk Bryan Repollo of Inawayan by surprise.
Maria Lourdes Garillos, population program officer of the Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) 7, said the two barangays in the south district recorded more than 85 cases of teenage pregnancy last year.
But she did not provide the exact number of teenage pregnancies in each barangay.
Garillos informed SunStar Cebu about the data last Thursday, July 13, 2023, after the presentation of the results of the 2022 National Demographic and Health Survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority, which focused on women and children’s health.
“First is because these youths, they are not aware. There is not much information acquisition in terms of comprehensive sexuality education and adolescent reproductive health,” Garillos said.
Addressing the problem
Abellana said he is yet to conduct a survey on how many teens in Mambaling have been impregnated by accident, or “gipaangkan” in Cebuano.
He said the figures are alarming, adding that they will look into it as it is inappropriate for teens to be bearing children at such a young age.
“We (involved stakeholders) will meet on Monday (July 17) to perform my obligations as the barangay captain on this matter,” he told SunStar Cebu on Sunday, July 16.
Repollo, his counterpart in Inayawan, echoed his sentiments.
Repollo told SunStar Cebu on Saturday that he did not receive any report from Popcom 7, but vowed to continue the ongoing programs against teenage pregnancy in their barangay.
“Even without that report from [Popcom 7], we already had been conducting a lot of seminars and symposiums regarding teenage pregnancy to the students, parents and different people’s organization in the barangay,” he said.
He said that they have been coordinating with administrators of the Inayawan Elementary School and Inayawan National High School to monitor youngsters.
He said they are also implementing a curfew for minors in the barangay.
Garillos said Cebu City had the highest number of teenage pregnancies among highly urbanized cities in the region in the past year, which she considered alarming.
“This is what we call ‘too young, too risky, and too soon.’ They are not ready for their reproductive health and even so for their future,” she said. “Their future is very vague. They are still in school. Then they are very prone to maternal and infant mortality in these cases.”
She said the youngest girl to have gotten pregnant was 10 years old, but she did not divulge where the girl came from.
Garillos also did not share statistics from other barangays in the city, as well as data from other provinces in the region.
Ignorance
She said that while she had identified a number of potential contributing factors based on the agency’s monitoring, lack of awareness remained the main reason for teenage pregnancy.
She said children and teenagers in these places hardly received any education on reproduction health.
She stated that it is important for them to understand the fundamentals, such as the possibility of pregnancy when a girl first gets her period and when a boy starts producing sperm.
Garillos said it is important to understand that early pregnancy happens when neither party is aware of what can happen after having unprotected sex.
She also said there are cases where the male is much older than the female.
Programs
Garillos said Popcom 7 will continue to intensify efforts to educate the youth about reproductive health to combat teenage pregnancy.
According to her, there are teen centers in various locations throughout the region with trained peer educators conducting training programs for teenagers.
She said they partnered with organizations in the youth sector, such as the National Youth Commission and the Sangguniang Kabataan, for their initiatives.
“Instead of them only conducting activities like basketball leagues and pageants, it would be better if there is an advocacy aspect that advocates towards making known what is teenage pregnancy,” she said.
Garillos said they are also collaborating with the Department of Education in conducting age-appropriate “heart-to-heart” discussions with students about reproductive health.
According to the provided data for 2021, there were 10,717 teenage pregnancies involving girls between the ages of 15 and 19, and 164 pregnancies involving girls under the age of 15 in Central Visayas.