Sex Ed a wedge issue

By Fr. ROY CIMAGALA, roycimagala@gmail.com
June 27, 2010

PARENTS should be wary of this DepEd plan to teach sex education to school children. I feel they have to register their concern more vocally, because this move is fraught with danger.

It’s funny that in spite of the enormous logistics problems besetting the department, it prefers to give more attention to this sex ed experiment. Priorities are twisted.

Classrooms are lacking, teachers are underpaid, the whole educational system is peppered with holes, and yet, here we are, talking about sex ed whose taunted benefits are seriously put in question.

I know many private individuals and groups who on their own initiatives have helped schools by supplying desks, repainting the buildings if not putting up new buildings, giving scholarships to students and incentives to teachers, etc., precisely because the DepEd cannot cope with the problems.

There is no doubt that this sex ed affair is ideologically driven. Hardly any consultation with parents was made. It’s just shamelessly pushed by groups that happen to have money and positions of influence. As such it has become a wedge issue, very intrusive and divisive.

In spite of the many good things said of it, we cannot deny the fact that this move is part of a global effort to redefine and reengineer morality, culture and society itself. The local supporters cannot claim total independence from this worldwide network, since the whole idea originated from there.

Obviously, the DepEd officials are saying that the sex ed they are offering would have nothing to do with eliciting prurience. It would not be talking about the sexual act, but about responsibility and health. Tell that to the Marines! We’ve had enough of this meme, but such reasoning is reckless.

Sex is a most delicate topic, and it cannot be dealt with only with scientific or social and health purposes in mind. This is the main infirmity of the sex ed programs so far formulated by different groups. They get stuck in that level.

Sex always has to be situated in the general milieu of chastity and of true love that can only come from God and follow a certain God-given natural law. Chastity is the effort to integrate the constitutive bodily and spiritual elements of sex. It’s not just a kind of open field where anyone can contribute anything he likes.

My experience in inculcating the virtue of chastity to the young has always required of me nothing less than heroic prayers and sacrifice and endless monitoring of developments.

A youth’s mind and heart are delicate, unstable, easily affected by all sorts of things. As much as possible someone has to be there whenever they need help, clarification, reassurance, etc.

In this task, it would be better to be pro-active, able to read minds and predicaments, and not to wait for them to come and tell. They have to be given the whole picture of sexuality and chastity, not the slanted and distorted ones often presented by some ideologies that have different agendas.

In the UN formula which is what our local sex ed program follows, this ideological approach is quite clear. There are references, for example, of different forms of families, what we may call alternative forms that are not keeping with our nature.

This approach has gathered greater notoriety since no less than the current US president is strongly supporting it, reflecting a very liberal frame of mind. During the Father’s Day celebration, while he rightly praised the role of fathers in the family, he also said that families can have two fathers, instead of a father and a mother.

This is the kind of development we in our country should try to avoid, by nipping in the bud whatever initiatives can lead to it. I have no doubt that the present sex ed program touted by the DepEd has this pedigree and possibility. We should be very discerning and prudent.

The problems that the sex ed is supposed to solve are usual problems in any given society. Yes, we need to do something about them, even something drastic. We have to empower the families to fulfill their responsibility to teach chastity and the nature, meaning and purpose of human sexuality.

We also have to clean up our society – the media, the entertainment world, etc. We have to put in place a more responsive social network aimed at helping everyone in this area.