(Part 9)
If we accept the truth that human sexuality, marriage, and family cannot be analyzed in purely materialistic, hedonistic, or consumerist terms, then sexuality education itself must be an education in the ultimate purposes of life, love, sexuality (manhood and womanhood), and sex itself. This is the approach taken by an 11-volume guidebook for schoolteachers and parents on education in human sexuality, intended for pupils in Grades 5 to 12 written by Antonio Torralba, Chelina de los Trinos-Gutierrez, and Lora Tan-Garcia (together with other alumni of the University of Asia and the Pacific).
With the introductory volume entitled, Sexuality Education 101 (Education in Love, Sex, and Life), this series of textbooks is currently used in hundreds of public and private schools all over the country because the content and approach used by the authors are of universal application across faith (with no reference to religious beliefs), culture, social status, and school type.
This guidebook should be seriously considered as an alternative to materials and approaches being proposed by both Senate Bill 1979 and Department of Education Memo 31 that incorporate very dangerous ideas from the so-called Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) being proposed by such international bodies as the UNESCO and the World Health Organization (WHO), notorious for indulging in what is called “ideological colonization.” Even President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. himself has observed that the Senate Bill reeks with the very dangerous “woke mentality” that the Bill’s proponents are “trying to bring into our system.” For example, these international bodies discuss masturbation as normal, not harmful, and in WHO, an explored topic at a very early age. Our legislators should be very careful that they don’t pass laws that incorporate, even subliminally, morally objectional behaviors that some of these international bodies are trying to impose on the developing countries of the world under the guise of modernization and industrialization.
The guidebook seeks to accomplish two objectives:
a. To provide teachers and parents with sound criteria based on both faith and reason to enable children to make good and responsible day-to-day decisions.
b. To provide an easy reference for parents and teachers on the education of pre-teenage and teenage children in living their sexuality with the goal of wholesome lifestyle and well-being.
As we saw in my last column, parents are the first and principal educators of their children, especially on the topic of sex education.
The guidebook was meant by the authors — highly experienced especially in values education or character development — as a response to the mandate of legislation on reproductive health. They recognized the fact that human sexuality is the most deeply personal of all subjects in the basic education curriculum. It is obvious that the subject is not just an academic matter but one that is life directing, since what is primarily studied is the human relationship between man and woman, between husband and wife, and between father and mother. Its teaching must, therefore, be based on objective and universal principles that ought to be more or less understood by the parents and teachers working in close collaboration with one another across the grade levels. And as indicated in the law, the teaching on sexuality has to be age-appropriate both in substance and form, in content and approach.
Let me quote from a chapter of the book entitled “The Bottomline is the Human Person”: “In giving an authentic sexuality education, it is necessary to have a philosophical understanding of the human person. Why? By analogy, a doctor cannot make right diagnoses if he does not have a good grasp of human anatomy. His prescriptions would not work well and could even be fatal. Similarly, without a genuine understanding of the human person, his dignity and the gift of his sexuality, the teacher may unwittingly use methods or impart information that harm the student’s judgement on sexual matters. One student whose teacher taught her and her entire class how to use a condom using a banana said, “On hindsight, this lesson did not teach me to respect my body and the act of sex. It even made me curious about sex and everything else that had to do with it.”
As reported by Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza et al in this paper, the Senate Committee on Basic Education, led by Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian, is conducting an inquiry into the Department of Education’s implementation of sexual education in response to criticisms of the Bill coming from organizations of parents, educators, and religious leaders. This move was also partly provoked by comments of President Marcos Jr. which linked the Bill to the “woke mentality” especially prevalent in the US during the term of President Joe Biden. Mr. Gatchalian, who worked closely with former Senator Sonny Angara (who is now the Secretary of Education) on issues of basic education, announced: “Amid debates on implementing sex education in schools, where the President emphasized the important role of parents — a stance I completely agree with — the Senate Committee on Basic Education will conduct an inquiry on the DepEd’s implementation of Comprehensive Sexuality Education.”
(To be continued.)
Bernardo M. Villegas has a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard, is professor emeritus at the University of Asia and the Pacific, and a visiting professor at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. He was a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission.