MANILA (UPDATED) — Malacañang on Friday welcomed the announcement of Sen. Risa Hontiveros that she has filed a substitute bill to the controversial Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy billshortly after several of her colleagues withdrew support for the bill.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. earlier vowed to veto Senate Bill 1979, citing “ridiculous and abhorent” provisions of the bill which he says will allow “teaching of children as young as 4-year-olds to masturbate.”

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“We always welcome initiatives like those because it means she finally realized that there must be something objectionable to her earlier version, but we are not judging her person at all,” Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin told Palace reporters.

Hontiveros has stood firm that criticisms raised against the bill — for example that it will teach young children to masturbate — are not in the text of the proposed measure.

The President, however, said that he has to read the substitute bill first before giving his reactions.

Malacañang meanwhile confirmed that while there has been no mention about teaching young children on masturbation, the Chief Executive has objected to a provision of the bill that states that the comprehensive sexuality education program until the proposed law will be in line with “international standards.”

'Para hindi na mabaluktot': Hontiveros refines anti-teen pregnancy bill

“This is very common, okay? Because when you read something, you read the lines, and there are between the lines, also. Language is very broad, and you have connotation, denotation, and the other implications of language. So let’s give the President the benefit of the doubt about that,” Bersamin said.