Teenage pregnancy still up in Eastern Visayas

TACLOBAN CITY – The Commission on Population (Popcom) continues to address the rise in the number of adolescents getting pregnant in Eastern Visayas.

Popcom Regional Director Elnora Pulma said that through Family Planning Caravans under the Philippine Population Management Program, they are not only able to bring information and family planning services to couples with unmet family planning needs, but also to adolescents for fertility and HIV-AIDS awareness.

“We bring family planning services and information closer to the municipalities, because some children as young as nine years old are not aware of their fertility that as soon as they menstruate they are already capable of getting pregnant,” Pulma said.

Based on records from the Department of Health (DOH), 6.9 percent of adolescents in the region get pregnant as young as 10 years old, prompting the passage of a resolution in the Regional Development Council (RDC) for all state universities and other research institutions to conduct studies on teenage pregnancy to find out if these are products of incest or any other factors.

“This is a prevailing and significant issue that we need to address. These adolescents who get pregnant as early as 10 years old become mothers in two to three years and will be replaced by the next generation, so we need to intensify communication and information to parents as well as the children,” Popcom information officer Reyan Arinto said.

Earlier, Popcom Executive Director Juan Antonio Perez noted that while cases of adolescent pregnancies have dropped in other regions, the numbers have increased in Eastern Visayas, from 9,094 adolescent pregnancies in 2014 to 9,483 in 2015.

Perez said the national adolescent pregnancy figure went down from 209,000 in 2014 to 207,000 in 2015, but the figure for Leyte, Samar, Northern Samar and Eastern Samar have increased.

The region reported 61 cases in 2014 and 66 cases of very young girls giving birth in 2015.

“Nakikita namin na adolescent pregnancy happens because the young people have the lowest access to family planning and protection. We want to help young people out because adolescent pregnancy deprives people of P33 billion a year worth of economic opportunities since they are not able to finish school or have dropped out,” Perez said.