Critics of the government plan to integrate sex education into the basic education curriculum called on the Department of Education to revise its teaching modules for “Adult Reproductive Health” program even while others continued to call for its cancellation.

The critics, including the Catholic Church, other religious leaders and parents, were presented with the teaching modules during a consultation meeting called by the DepEd.

During the consultation between the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), other religious leaders, and parents with DepEd officials led by Education Secretary Mona Valisno, DepEd presented the modules to be used for the sex education program.

After seeing the contents of the prepared modules, the bishops said that the modules should focus more on hygiene and wellness rather than on the science of reproduction, correct values and the norms of interpersonal relations to avoid pre-marital sex and teen-age pregnancy since these are tackled in other existing subjects.

The Bishops also opposed the DepEd’s definition of sex education: “A course of study covering broad range of information covering the physical, psychological, social, and sexual development of individuals.”

Reuben Abante, senior pastor bishop of the Lighthouse Bible Baptist Church Missions and Ministries, said that sex education is not only about physical and psychological aspects “but should also focus on spirituality.”

During the dialogue, bishops also opposed the context of numbers presented by DepEd.

According to Valisno, the Department is pushing for sex education based on the facts on teenage pregnancy in the Philippines which revealed that 3.6 million of teenagers or 5.2 percent of the population got pregnant. “Of these pregnancies, 92 percent was unplanned,” she said.

The DepEd also said that the aim of sex education is to lessen the risks of teenage pregnancy including the risk for malnutrition, inadequate prenatal care, fetal deaths, abortion and acquiring cervical cancer and other sex related diseases.

However, the bishops said that DepEd may be integrating sex education for the wrong reasons. “Are they saying that pregnancy should be forbidden in order to avoid all these risks?”

DepEd Undersecretary for Muslim Affairs and Administration Manoros Boransing pointed out that the name should be changed since “we have a very conservative country.”

He also added that DepEd should have initiated earlier dialogues with the religious sector and other concerned groups so controversies would have been avoided.

To allay the concerns of critics, DepEd is also considering changing the subject "sex education" to "gender education."

Earlier, DepEd Undersecretary for Legal Affairs, Atty. Franklin Sunga strongly suggested to change the name of the subject.

“We don’t want the students and the parents to misinterpret it and we’re not here to titillate the imagination of our students," he said.

Before the re-opening of classes, DepEd has already announced that 159 public elementary and secondary schools were selected for the pilot testing. “Modules have already been prepared and we also conducted training for teachers to prepare them for this,” Valisno said.

Despite the continued clarification of DepEd that sex education will not teach anything about the act of making love, bishops continue to oppose it saying that “sex education should not be taught by teachers but by the parents.”

Meanwhile, majority of the parents who attended the dialogue agreed that sex education must be integrated in school subjects since these topics are not usually discussed inside the house.

When asked if there’s a possibility to cancel sex education during its pilot run if critics continue to protest against it, DepEd Communications Head Kenneth Tirado said that the decision will depend on the final output.

“So far, the dialogues went well since they have many inputs on the implementation. We are still open to suggestions,” he said.