THE public declaration of the Department of Health (DOH) to start distributing condoms to students nationwide after an intimate collaboration with the Department of Education (DepEd) come 2017 has recently ignited an uproar to the rather conservative communities both geographically and virtually - social media alike.
Accordingly, the DOH posits that providing access to condoms and reproductive health education will equip the adolescent segment of the population with preventive knowledge that will be translated to disease- preventing behaviors, specifically measures from contracting Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/Aids).
As a pilot health program with the paradigm shift from the confines of health institutions and academia to the community in general and households in specific, the DOH envisions this move to effectively curb statistics of HIV/Aids cases among adolescents, who are among the most vulnerable victims.
Statistics have shown that the youngest Filipino who has been infected with HIV/Aids not due to vertical transmission (mother-to-child during childbearing and birth) but rather through sexual contact is 11 years of age.
This finding implies that adolescents of this generation are engaging in sexual activities a lot more precocious compared to previous times.
However, this has created social chaos causing a great divide between the “conservatives” and “radicals” of this time and space.
At one point of the continuum rests the parcel of the population who are against it. They claim that by giving condoms, the DOH is actually condoning and promoting sexual activities especially among the youth.
In reality, they have no evidence like statistics or study that could likewise support their claims. A social scientist would conclude that these lines of thinking are nothing more than “Armchair Theorizing”: a person would rationalize things even in the absence of evidence and hold it as true in an ambitious attempt to establish a socially acceptable explanation to an issue at hand.
In the most objective sense, those who oppose DOH’s initiatives on the distribution of condom with the fear that such will only increase premarital sex and irresponsible sexual encounters actually believe so because of cultural norms, particularly on the concept of taboo.
In the Philippines, a predominantly Christian country, the belief that talking and engaging about sexual matters is something “immoral,” especially when done outside the context of marriage.
Definitely, no one in this time gets married at age 10 or 11. It is not only medically unsafe but likewise unlawful to do so in our country.
Therefore, access to objective knowledge on sexual health education is rather reserved to peers and technology such as pornography and these are highly supported by various studies.
As such, the adolescent is left vulnerable of misconceptions and is potential for an unsafe sexual practice is a risk that is ever palpable.
On the other hand, studies have also shown that those families who do discuss sexual matters to their adolescents use “codes” that symbolize reproductive anatomy like “birds” and “flowers” that have, in much ways, jeopardized the quality and meaning of sex education.
This is not to invalidate or discredit the points lamented by those who oppose it but rather more of an appeal to prove their point or stand through objective social science research or statistics that could suffice evidence rather than expressing their “armchair theories” through social media like Facebook or Twitter, to name a few, perpetuating the great divide.
In another vein, why do others prefer to deprive the uninformed and uneducated access to sexual health education? Sociologically, this phenomenon is timeless as it has always been supported that ignorance creates fear and that those who know maintain power.
In a neutral ground, there are those who accept developmentally-appropriate reproductive health education but rather could not engulf the idea of distributing condoms to the adolescent in schools as they see it as something extreme.
In a study conducted by Cosme et… in 2012, it was found that Filipino men, regardless of age are hesitant to purchase condoms in pharmacies and convenient stores. In their study, the typical Filipino man would either buy “other stuff” and just add the condom in the basket or purchase the condom in a store or pharmacy where not many people are present. This had led researchers to conclude that condom is as symbolic as the sanitary napkin in the old days where sellers had to wrap it in a newspaper before handing it to the customer.
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The writer is a medical professional and has been writing as a health columnist of this paper since 2008. He is an alumnus of Xavier University Ateneo de Cagayan from Elementary to Graduate School. Currently he is a faculty member of the Medical Education Unit of the Doctor of Medicine Program of Southwestern University Phinma, where he is likewise finishing his Master of Public Health.