Photo Release

September 17, 2020

Addressing teenage pregnancies: Senate Majority Leader Migz Zubiri expresses the belief that the proposed measure seeking to raise the age for statutory rape, which is currently below 12 years old, could somehow help address the rising teenage pregnancy incidence in the country. Zubiri, during Thursday’s virtual hearing of the Committee on Finance on the proposed 2021 budget of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), noted that the increasing number of teenage pregnancies in the country was very disturbing and he asked Commission on Population (PopCom) Usec. JP Perez if the agency would support the move. Perez said they will support the measure considering that the number of pregnancies among 10 to 14 year-old children has gone up to 2,200 in 2018 from 1,000 in 2007. “We are pushing in the Senate to raise the minimum age. The debate is whether 16 or 18 but we are definitely going to try to push the minimum age to no less than 16 years old,” Zubiri said. (Screen grab/Senate PRIB)

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