Poor family relationships root of teen pregnancies, research reveals

Reacting to UNFPA reports that the Philippines has the highest rate of teen pregnancies in Asia, Filipino youth pointed to poor family relationships and communication as the culprit.

Nelson Ingking, 25, a teacher from the Diocese of Talibon, Bohol shared about his faculty's experience with young people, revealing that they have a lot of problematic students who constantly look for attention.

We have a lot of problematic students who are deprived of love and attention from family members, which “they find in their boyfriend or girlfriend,” he said.

“Dapat kasi ang pinagtitibay natin relationship sa family...Family background talaga 'yan, (What we should be strengthening are family relationships...It's really a matter of family background)” Melanie Santos, 28, a staff of the National Secretariat for Youth Apostolate, added.

Santos specifically mentioned the classic “rebellious” stage teenagers go through and absentee parents.

What appear to be Santos' and Ingking's personal opinions are, in fact, backed by research. According to a researched article Relationships, Love and Sexuality: What the Filipino Teens Think and Feel by Jokin de Irala, “...communication with parents protects against early sexual initiation and against risky behaviors.”

Findings from other studies like the one conducted by Bruce Ellis, Ph.D., a professor of experimental psychology at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, show that girls who had absentee fathers either before they were born or up to age 5 were seven to eight times more likely to get pregnant as an adolescent compared to girls who lived with their fathers.

For political science graduate Aphrodite Organo, 25, the response to the alarming rise in teen pregnancies is two-way openness.

“Teenagers should be open to their parents and when they reach that stage, the parents should be the ones to orient them,” she said in the vernacular.

According to the National Demographic Health Survey 2008, 3 percent of Filipino women have sexual intercourse by age 15. [Nirva'ana Delacruz]