Unconstitutional deceptive teenage pregnancy bill now dead with PBBM veto commitment

The House-approved bill on promoting sex education and preventing teenage pregnancies is now effectively dead with the commitment of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to veto it if passed by Congress, Cagayan de Oro City Rep. Rufus Rodriguez today said.

“We laud the President for committing to reject this bill as approved by the House of Representatives and as presently being discussed in the Senate. His statement speaks volumes of his moral values,” Rodriguez said.

“If the bill’s objectionable provisions are not removed, this measure is headed for the graveyard. It is DOA (dead on arrival) at the Palace,” he said.

In an interview on Monday, the President said he has read the details of the Senate bill on sex education and preventing adolescent pregnancies.

“I was shocked and I was appalled by some of the elements of that (bill). All this woke that they are trying to bring into our system. That every child has the right to try different sexualities. This is ridiculous, this is abhorrent. This is a travesty of what sex education should be to the children,” he said.

“‘Yung mga sinama nila na woke na absurdities are abhorrent to me. And I am already guaranteeing, hindi pa napasa ito, pero if this bill is passed in that form, I guarantee all parents, teachers, and children, I will immediately veto it,” the President said.

Rodriguez said the President’s veto assurance “is a message for the House and the Senate to no longer waste precious taxpayers’ money, time and effort on the bill as presently worded.”

“The two chambers should rewrite it to delete provisions which violate the constitutional natural and primary right of parents to rear and educate their children and offensive to the sense of morality of parents, teachers, children, and the general public. The final copy should be acceptable to them and the President, who has to sign it for it to become a law,” he said.

Last Friday, Rodriguez filed House Resolution 2174 urging the House of Representatives to recall its approval of the bill proposing a national policy “in preventing adolescent pregnancies and institutionalizing protection for adolescent parents.”

The House approved the bill on Sept. 5, 2023 and had sent it to the Senate, which has a separate but similar version.

Rodriguez said the measure “is deceptive” and violates several provisions of the Constitution and the Family Code, including a prohibition against a bill having more than one topic.

“Many provisions of the bill aim to institutionalize Comprehensive Adolescent Sexuality Education (CASE), which is a different and separate subject matter from adolescent pregnancy. This is violative of Article IV, Section 26, Paragraph (1) of the Constitution,” he said.

He quoted the section: “Every bill passed by Congress shall embrace only one subject matter which shall be expressed in the title thereof.”

Rodriguez said Bill No. 8910 “is very deceptive considering that (while) a reading of the title of the bill will show that it deals with the prevention of adolescent pregnancies and protection of adolescent parents, the bill in fact is mainly on institutionalizing CASE.”

He noted the apprehensions and warnings expressed by the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches and Public Policy Review Commission Chairperson former Supreme Court chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno that CASE, which is being promoted by three United Nations agencies, “is an international program…that will hyper-sexualize children at a very early age.”

“It has been alleged that CASE will result in undermining parental authority, early sexualization, promoting risky behaviors, contradicting constitutional values, failing to establish abstinence, introducing age-inappropriate content, and promotion of homosexuality/bisexuality,” Rodriguez said.

The bill also contravenes Family Code provisions recognizing the “natural right and duty of parents over unemancipated children and their duty to care for and rear them (Art 209), and that parents exercise parental authority over unemancipated children and shall furnish them good and wholesome educational materials and prevent them from acquiring habits detrimental to their health, studies and morals ( Art 220, par 4),” he said.

It also deprived parents of their natural right and duty to rear their children, to give them parental guidance and to give or withhold parental consent, he said.