Govt asks court to junk suit vs DepEd on sex ed issue

Government lawyers on Thursday asked the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to junk the class suit filed against the Department of Education in connection with the planned teaching of sex education to elementary and secondary school students. Assistant Solicitor General Renan Ramos told QCRTC Branch 88 Presiding Judge Rosanna Maglaya during the hearing on the prayer for the issuance of temporary restraining order (TRO) that the complaint lacked merit. The complaint was filed last Monday by lawyer Jo Imbong, a defeated senatorial candidate in the recent elections, and 26 parents who said sex education in schools is unconstitutional and therefore must not be taught. Imbong and the other petitioners specifically sought to stop the implementation of the September 2005 DepEd Memorandum 261 institutionalizing sex education in elementary and high schools because it allegedly violates the primary rights of parents to the development of the moral character of their children. But according to Ramos, who represented DepEd Secretary Mona Valisno and Undersecretary Ramon Bacani, nothing in the assailed DepEd Memorandum 261, which is about the Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH), violates the 1987 Constitution. "Petitioners have not shown the elemental injury that they have suffered or will suffer direct injury by reason of the pilot testing of the ARH in selected schools that would endow them with the standing to sue," Ramos said. He also disclosed that the petitioners themselves admitted in court that they had no children enrolled in the schools where the pilot testing of the program is being implemented that make them stand to suffer injury if the program will push through. Also, Ramos said the petitioners are not entitled to a TRO since they cannot prove that their rights as parents were violated by the DepEd memorandum on sex education. Ramos said the application for preliminary injunction or TRO is premature since the ARH program is still in its pilot testing phase. He also said that there is nothing immoral about the program "since it is all about gender development of the students so that they would be made aware of their human anatomy." Meanwhile, after hearing all the arguments of both the petitioners and the defendants and the submission of documents in court, Judge Maglaya said the prayer for the issuance of the TRO was deemed submitted. — KBK/RSJ, GMANews.TV