Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos denounced on Monday a proposed law to make sex education mandatory in schools in the conservative mainly Catholic nation, alleging it would teach four year-olds to pleasure themselves.
Marcos vowed to veto the bill in the event it hurdles Congress, blaming people with a "woke" mentality for what he said was an "abhorrent" and "ridiculous" idea.
Legislators backing the "Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy" bill said making it a mandatory subject in schools would help address a high rate of teen pregnancies, as well as sexual assault of minors. "Over the weekend, I finally read in detail Senate Bill 1979.
And I was shocked, and I was appalled by some of the -- some of the elements of that," Marcos told reporters. "You will teach four-year-olds how to masturbate.
