Pregnancies occurred in areas devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda

More girls as young as 12 to 13 years old are getting pregnant in Central Visayas, the regional Population Commission (PopCom) office said yesterday.

Carl Dave Black Ang, PopCom-7’s population representative for Cebu and Bohol, said they were alarmed after learning about girls who got pregnant in the towns of Pinamungajan and Danao during their school visits there.

“In Pinamungajan, a 12-year-old boy got a 13-year-old girl pregnant. A 12-year-old girl in Danao got pregnant and the father isn’t known. She quit school early,” Ang said.

He said there were also high school students who got pregnant after hooking up with construction workers and carpenters.

“Reports on pregnant high school students involving construction workers happened during school rehabilitation after Super Typhoon Yolanda. This year we received reports that there are also incidents in Lapu-Lapu City where repairmen got students pregnant,” Ang said.

He said school principals and officials are doing profiling on construction workers at schools.

Ang was unable to provide figures on how many high school students got pregnant at the time.

Ang also asked parents to be more approachable to their children.

“Based on studies, young people tend to open up more with their peers to whom they get wrong information on sex, fertility and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs),” he said.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) stated there were 11,360 teenage births in Cebu last 2014. In Central Visayas, teenage births recorded in 2014 reached 16,708 from ages 10 to 19 years old.

Ang said they have stepped up their education campaign to prevent teenage pregnancies and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) cases.

He said their office is also organizing a summer youth camp and provincial camp from May 15 to 17 and May 17 to 19, respectively, in Cordova town.

About 150 youths in the region are expected to join the camps.

Ang said they are also including HIV awareness during the youth camps. HIV is a disease acquired through unsafe sex and sharing of needles.

In Central Visayas, the Department of Health (DOH-7) recorded 62 cases as of January 2017, which is lower compared to January 2016 with 71 cases.

The region ranks fourth in HIV cases as of January 2017.