National Children's Month Celebration
Theme: Isulong: Tamang Pag-aaruga para sa Lahat ng Bata
November
is National Children's Month! This is an annual event to celebrate and
recognize the Filipino children as the most valuable assets of the nation, and
to emphasize the importance of the role of the child within the Filipino family
and within Philippine society. The 2018 NCM focuses on positive parenting, with
the theme “ISULONG: TAMANG PAG-AARUGA PARA SA LAHAT NG BATA.” As we
celebrate National Children's Month, let us remember that Violence Against
Children (VAC) is everywhere and it occurs across socio-economic status.
Children have a right to protection from all forms of violence.
The Department of Education (DepEd) encouraged all
private and public elementary and secondary schools to undertake activities in
line with the celebration of the 2018 National Children’s Month (NCM) in month
of November. Education Secretary Leonor Briones, in DepEd Memorandum No. 163
series of 2018, expressed support to the celebration the NCM this year which
will be led by the Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC). She noted that
the celebration of this year’s NCM is pursuant to Republic Act No. 10661, “An
Act Declaring the Month of November of Every Year as the National Children’s
Month.” It commemorates the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the
Child by the United Nations General Assembly on Nov. 20, 1989 and “seeks to
instill its significance in the Filipino consciousness.”Briones said the DepEd
is mandated to “facilitate and encourage the celebration of this month in all
public and private schools nationwide.”
With the theme, “Isulong: Tamang Pag-Aaruga Para sa
Lahat ng Bata,” this year’s NCM celebration marks the launch of the Philippine
Plan of Action to End Violence Against Children (PPAEVAC). The PPAEVAC is a
multi-sectoral road map to “progressively reduce violence against children as
part of the government’s commitment to build an enabling environment that
respects, protects and fulfills child’s rights and address specific Sustainable
Development Goals.”
Briones, in the said DepEd Memo, noted that the
PPAEVAC “translates the findings of the 2015 National Baseline Study on
Violence Against Children (NBS-VAC) into specific actions and results. The
study, which was spearheaded by CWC, reveals that in “various settings in the
Philippines, it is reported that three in five children have experienced
physical violence; three in five children have experienced psychological
violence, and one in five children have suffered sexual abuse.”
The PPAEVAC, Briones noted, also considered
findings of the Systematic Review of the Drivers of Violence Affecting
Children, which presents VAC as “not only an issue of personal behavior, but as
situated in contextual factors that influence individual behavior such as the
family’s level of financial security and education as well as community social
norms.” Under the PPAEVAC, Briones said that DepEd is “the lead agency for Key
Result Area (KRA) 2 which states that “children and adolescents should
demonstrate personal skills in managing risks, protecting themselves from
violence, reporting their experience of violence, and seeing professional help
when needed.”
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