“Condoms will be available in Davao schools,” wrote Davao veteran journalist Alexander D. Lopez, in a headline that was carried by EDGE Davao last year.
“The rational distribution of condoms in senior high schools in Davao region will push through despite the opposition posed by other sectors to the said measure,” penned Lopez, whose source of information was Dr. Abdullah Dumama, Jr., assistant health secretary and health department’s regional director.
“This measure must be implemented right away,” Dr. Dumama was quoted as saying. He added that distribution of condoms among the senior students in high schools will help decrease the number of teen pregnancies and prevent the rising HIV cases in the region.
Studies conducted by the World Bank from 2000 to 2003 ranked the Philippines as one of the top 10 countries with an increasing number of teenage mothers. Seven out of 10 Filipina mothers are adolescents; most of them are below 19 years old.
“It is unlikely that a sexually active teenager will settle with a single partner for life,” says Dr. Mildred R. Yutuc, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Caloocan City. In fact, there are some girls who claim that they engage in casual sex with acquaintances.
In an article published in Health and Lifestyle, author Ma. Vanessa L. Estinozo quoted Dr. Jean S. Tay, director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Davao Doctors Hospital, who enumerated some factors on why teenage girls are most likely to get pregnant: “If they are living together with their boyfriend, they are out of school, their parents are separated or one is overseas, they engage in sex at a young age and/or if they use condoms improperly.”
In premature sex, pregnancy is not the only risk. There is also the peril of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, which can result in chronic infection, infertility or, in the case of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), death.
Last year, the Davao region was listed by the health department as among the areas in the country that have a high number of new HIV infections. From 1984 to 2016, some 1,793 cases were recorded in the region, with 98 of them already dead.
The health department data said that at least three cases were from the age bracket of 15 years old. From 15 up to 24 years old, the cases reported were 719. Some 893 cases came from those ages 24 to 34.
However, Dr. Dumama pointed out that condoms will be distributed among senior-level students with parental supervision.
This was supported by Jeff Fuentes, the chief of the Population Division of the City Health Office. In fact, counseling and sex education will be provided to those who will receive the condoms, according to EDGE Davao reporter Tiziana Celine S. Piatos.
Condoms will be distributed in school clinics, guidance centers, or health centers. For their part, teachers will undergo training on how to impart lessons on sex education. “In that way, the students are alerted that these are the ways of preventing unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infection,” Fuentes was quoted as saying.
Distributing condoms among students is nothing new. In 1997, the New York Times News Service circulated a news report based from a study that was published in The American Journal of Public Health.
The study compared the rates of condom use and sexual activity by thousands of high-school students in New York City schools, which offer condoms, and by students in Chicago, where HIV/AIDS education is provided but condoms are not available in schools.
“A new study says that making condoms easily accessible to public high-school students through AIDS education program does not increase rates of sexual activity, but does increase condom use,” the news report said.
The study rebuts the most visceral thinking of critics: that having condoms widely available might make teenagers more promiscuous.
The study also concluded that condom access in schools is “a low-cost, harmless addition” to AIDS prevention efforts.
In fact, one expert said he considered the study significant. “It’s an important study and important findings, but we need many more studies to access efforts to help young people who do engage in intercourse to protect them from being infected,” the expert commented.
A condom is a sheath-shaped barrier device used during sexual intercourse. Actually, there are two types of condoms: one for male and another for female.
A male condom is a thin sheath worn over a man’s erect penis to keep seminal fluid (cum) or pre-seminal fluid (pre-cum) from entering his partner’s body during oral, anal, or vaginal sex.
On the other hand, a female condom is a thin pouch worn inside the woman’s vagina to keep her partner’s seminal fluid or pre-seminal fluid from entering her body during intercourse.
“With proper use—and use at every act of intercourse—women whose partners use male condoms experience a 2-percent per-year pregnancy rate,” Wikipedia reports. “With typical use the rate of pregnancy is 18 percent per year.”
The AIDS program of the American government also reports: “When used consistently and correctly, condoms are highly effective in preventing HIV. They are also effective at preventing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that are transmitted through bodily fluids, such as gonorrhea and chlamydia. However, they provide less protection against STDs spread through skin-to-skin contact like human papillomavirus (genital warts), genital herpes and syphilis.”