THE Philippines is set to raise the age of sexual consent from 12 years old to 16 years old.

According to a recent report by Agence France-Presse (AFP), the country has one of the lowest ages of consent in the world, allowing adults to legally have sex with children as young as 12.

“Child rights activists have lobbied for decades to increase the age – enshrined in the penal code since 1930 – but faced resistance from what they describe as a ‘culture of patriarchy’ in a country where abortion and divorce are illegal,” the online news portal noted.

“Congress now looks set to approve a bill to raise the age to 16,” it added.

On December 1, the Philippine House of Representatives approved on third and final reading a bill seeking to raises the age for determining statutory rape to 16 years old.

Statutory rape, in common law jurisdictions, is non-forcible sexual activity wherein one of the individuals is below the age of consent or the age required to legally consent to the act.

Two hundred and seven lawmakers casted affirmative votes to approve House Bill 7836, which amends amend Republic Act No. 7610 or the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act. Only three lawmakers opposed the measure.

Campaigners say the bill would help protect children and adolescents in a nation that has become a global hotspot for online child sex abuse and exploitation.

“This is a victory for Filipino children,” said Patrizia Benvenuti, UNICEF’s chief of child protection in the Philippines.

She added, “Pegging 12 as the age of consent is really not consistent with scientific studies on brain development.”

One Filipina teenager who realized too late that she had been too young for a sexual relationship is Rose Alvarez (not her real name for protection).

She was 13 when she started being intimate with a man who was more than twice her age. She got pregnant at 14.

“I was still a child then, I didn’t know anything about sex,” Alvarez, now 16, told AFP at a clinic run by the Likhaan Center for Women’s Health in Navotas, Manila.

“I was telling him to use a condom… but he removed it.

He didn’t want to use it,” she added.

According to Alvarez, she was drunk the first time she slept with the man, who was about 29 when they met on Facebook.

“When I woke up I was shocked to see blood in my underwear and it hurt a lot,” she recalled. “I was too intoxicated to know what was happening.”

Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros on Dec. 2 expressed hope that the Senate version of HB 7836 could still be approved on the third and final reading by the end of the year.

“I’m hopeful we could pass this and catch up with the parliamentary status in the House, and we pass it within the year,” said Hontiveros, co-author of the measure and chairwoman of the Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality.

“This amendment to the current Anti-Rape Law places consent, or the lack of consent, front and center of the crime of rape and provides more protection to teenage girls especially against statutory rape,” she added.

Citing data from the Center for Women’s Resources, Hontiveros stressed that a woman or child is raped nearly every hour. Seven out of 10 victims are children and the vast majority are girls.

Rowena Legaspi, executive director of the Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center, pointed out that prosecuting adult perpetrators in rape cases involving children has been difficult because they can argue the sex was consensual.

“Imagine a 12-year-old… that girl is still a minor. How could she have consented?” she told AFP.

Under HB 7836, the crime of statutory rape is committed when the victim is below 16 years old, or if the victim is older but is suffering from physical, mental or psychological disability

It also metes out stiffer penalties for rape, sexual exploitation, and abuse, as well as shifts the burden of proof of consent on the part of the offender.