PPO to launch TICs in 12 central public high schools of the province

BALANGA CITY, Bataan – The Provincial Population Office (PPO) headed by Mr. Danilo Perez will be launching this month, their newest program of establishing Teenage Information Centers (TIC) in the 12 central public high schools in the 11 towns and 1 component city of the province.

PPO Perez said that they are alarmed on the rapid increase of teenage pregnancies which run to 3,000 last 2016 as recorded by the local civil registrar, defining that teenage pregnancy is a rising issue in our society.

In line with the vision of the provincial government of attaining top level human development index (HDI) and at the same getting the lowest poverty incidence in the country, and cognizant of the risks that teenage pregnancy carries on the health of young mothers and their children, their office came up with an “out of the box” program, on top of their regular activities annually, aiming to address the real problems.

Perez said that they have conceptualized the project as early as March of this year, and have gone through the process of coordination with the Department of Health (DOH), school officials and other agencies that they are now ready to launch the program with the goal of reducing the number of teenage pregnancies by 20% or 1,892 by the second half of this year, simultaneously with the establishment of the 12 Teenage Info Center.

“Of course, we all know,” Perez stressed “that teenage pregnancy is associated with the following reasons, that teenagers as they reach puberty, do not understand their hormonal changes which give them unknown emotions coupled by the sense of their new found freedom; that many of them indulge in early sexual behavior due to peer pressure, lack of parental guidance, socio-economic factors and others.”

In this connection, PPO asks the help of the students (through their school officials) at least 15 peer counselors per school or a total of 180 students from grade 9, to be trained in peer counseling, to assist the PPO in their initiative as well as their information dissemination and school symposium.

Perez also said that since parents play an important role on the issue, they will also conduct responsible parenthood classes in the different barangays to educate them on the different aspects on how to guide their children especially those at the stage of puberty and teenage years.