Teens lose scholarship for pregnancy

 Is it proper to kick out a female student or faculty member from school because she got pregnant outside wedlock?

It is not proper but it still happens today sadly. Four college scholars of the Iloilo Provincial Government met that fate. For educators of the schools, state-owned at that, the four hapless girls deserve that for committing that shameful and immoral act of premarital sex. The secretariat of the provincial school board, from the human resource office of Iloilo Province, appealed to the schools in behalf of the teenagers to reconsider but to no avail.

I got wind of those cases by accident though: that fine day, the provincial legal office had no representative to the forum on Gender and Development (GAD) organized by Capitol for its own employees and those of the component city and towns. I was picked to attend it by chance, which turned out to be enlightening.

Every school year, Iloilo Province selects 25 graduates from public high schools, five per congressional district for college scholarship, with state-owned educational institutions being preferred. On top of free tuition, provincial scholars enjoy allowances for books, uniforms and transportation. They need not go to the Provincial Capitol to get their stipends; all they have to do is go the nearest LandBank ATMs.

If your child were picked as provincial scholar, count yourself among the luckiest because that means being gifted with up to P500,000 plus in benefits for a four- or five-year tertiary course. But all that can go to waste as unwanted pregnancy visits a female scholar.

The fate of the four scholars kicked out of college due to pregnancy sans wedlock did not befell their male partners though they may be as guilty using the same yardstick of morality the school administrators, mis-educators to be more precise, applied to the girls.

The Capitol HR need not beg for mercy in behalf of their ward.

All they need to do is slap these mis-educators copies of RA 8972 or the Single Parent Welfare Act of 2000.

The HR people could have as well hit the empty heads of these mis-educators with hard-bound copies of RA 9710 or the Magna Carta of Women (MCW) which Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed in 2010. MCW bans discrimination against unmarried women and penalizes the expulsion of women from the faculty or enrollment due to unwed pregnancy during the school year.

RA 9072 applies to both men and women who are left alone to the care of their children for reasons like, but not limited to, death of spouse or home partner, abandonment, physical and mental incapacity or separation. It may apply to bread winners orphaned of both parents and are left to take care of their younger siblings. This law was signed into law by Pres. Joseph Ejercito Estrada.

The Single Parents Welfare Act bans discrimination of single parents in schools or employment. The Iloilo Provincial Government, through an ordinance authored by SP June Mondejar, does a step farther by giving single parents (again this applies to women and men), up to 70 percent discount in all 13 hospitals run by Iloilo Province and the use of the facilities of the Iloilo Sports Complex.

Our sympathies for those four female students who lost their lifetime opportunity of completing a college course just because a pack of mis-educators refused to bend their distorted sense of right and wrong.

Instead of the boot, both RA 0710 and RA 8972 entitles unwed mothers and single parents (the latter term includes fathers and elder children working as bread winners for fellow orphaned siblings), parental leave, that is with pay, so they can take care of their sick wards.

At the end, it is the mis-educators of these state-owned colleges who need to undergo GAD seminars sponsored by the Iloilo Profincial Government. This is for free.