That Ballon on her Tummy

Brainless. Slut. Disgrace. No future. Stupid. Careless. Poor. Uneducated.

Those were the whisper of words that pass through the ears of Amanda as she sat with the aisle
of pregnant women. She was the youngest of them, the smallest, the thinnest too. Her figure is
like a little girl with a baloon on her tummy. She was alone with the 8 month old baby inside her,
unlike every mom there who had there husbands around. Her eyes had dark lines under them and
her lips were dry almost cracking.
She could remember the night when her aunt found out about the child in her, the night she
almost died being battered but all she can remember was cover her tummy and protect the
innocent inside her. How did it happen? She had no boyfriend, she never took drugs, she never
got drunk, she always went home early. Tears and sweat came running down her face as her aunt
kept slapping her. Idont know. What would she say? There is no way her aunt will believe
her.
Amanda was on her bed that night, tired and sleepy. She heard a soft crack of her door and
footsteps getting closer at her. suddenly a hand covored her mouth. Shhh, dont say anything.
Just shut up, this wont take long.
It was the worst night of her life. She felt numb and harrased, played. She had no parents, her
aunt took care of her, paid her education. What could she do? Tell the woman she treated as
mother that her husband raped her? That the monster is her childs father?
On the instant she realized her period missed, Amanda thought about abortion. But every night,
she would pray to God and she kept crying imagining the devils child in her womb. However,
she knew what was right and although she never knew where the strength and courage came
from, she decided to keep the child. She said to herself, This is my child, he is innocent.
Amanda nevertold her Aunt who the father is and her Aunt came to accept the child in the end.
Amanda stopped on the 2nd semester of her second year in College. Once her baby is delivered,
her Aunt agreed to put her back to school again but nobody knows what will happen next.
In a research in United States (1996), the national rape-related pregnancy rate is 5.0% per rape
among victims of reproductive age (aged 12 to 45); among adult women an estimated 32,101
pregnancies result from rape each year. Among 34 cases of rape-related pregnancy, the majority
occurred among adolescents and resulted from assault by a known, often related perpetrator.
Only 11.7% of these victims received immediate medical attention after the assault, and 47.1%
received no medical attention related to the rape. A total 32.4% of these victims did not discover
they were pregnant until they had already entered the second trimester; 32.2% opted to keep the
infant whereas 50% underwent abortion and 5.9% placed the infant for adoption; an additional
11.8% had spontaneous abortion.

Teen-age Pregnancy in the Philippines

Recent (2014) data from the Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA) reveal that every hour, 24
babies are delivered by teenage mothers. According to the 2014 Young Adult Fertility and
Sexuality (YAFS) study, around 14 percent of Filipino girls aged 15 to 19 are either pregnant for
the first time or are already mothersmore than twice the rate recorded in 2002. Among six
major economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Philippines has the highest
rate of teenage pregnancies and is the only country where the rate is increasing, per the United
Nations Population Fund.
Why Silence?
Most victims of gang rape remain silent for months before reporting the crime. Obet Montes,
coordinator for services of the women's group GABRIELA, says this is due to the victims fear
of societys judgment, of not wanting to be branded as maruming babae. The group says
further that a rape victim becomes so afraid that she is going to be blamed for the crime, that she
denies that she was violated.
Is there a Law?
The Anti-Rape Law of 1997, which amended the previous definition of rape as defined in the
Revised Penal Code of 1930, now defines the crime of rape as follows:
Article 266-A. Rape: When And How Committed. - Rape is committed:
1) By a man who shall have carnal knowledge of a woman under any of the following
circumstances:
a) Through force, threat, or intimidation;
b) When the offended party is deprived of reason or otherwise unconscious;
c) By means of fraudulent machination or grave abuse of authority; and
d) When the offended party is under twelve (12) years of age or is demented, even though none
of the circumstances mentioned above be present.
2) By any person who, under any of the circumstances mentioned in paragraph 1 hereof, shall
commit an act of sexual assault by inserting his penis into another person's mouth or anal orifice,
or any instrument or object, into the genital or anal orifice of another person.
The 1997 changes expanded the definition of rape and reclassified that crime as a Crime against
persons instead of, as previously, grouping it with Crimes against Chastity.