Population races with food prices

Population races with food prices

FILIPINOS numbered 88.57 million as of August 2007, according to a proclamation issued by President Arroyo.The proclamation was based on a national census conducted from August to September last year. This could be an undercount and the actual total could be higher. We know many friends and associates who were not visited by the National Statistics Office field men last year. Census takers, who are supposed to visit every home or place of business, are not perfect.

A population of close to 89 million is big for a country where the government could not efficiently deliver most basic services and where natural resources are finite. Currently, rice lines have begun to form in the cities and big towns besieged by poor rice distribution. Observers have suggested that growing population has hurt rice production because urbanization and “people pollution” have eroded farmlands and converted them to housing and recreation. An opposing school of thought says the size of the population is the last to blame for the loss of agricultural land to new housing subdivisions, roads and highways.

The annual growth rate of 2.04 percent in the past seven years, from 2000 to 2007, was higher than the government’s target of 1.95 percent annually up to 2010, according to Augusto Santos, acting director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority.

The debate on population growth

The NSO findings will again stoke the debate on the pluses and minuses of population growth and questions about the national population policy. The pessimists see sustained population increases as a drag to development and a great contributor to poverty. They claim that given the growing scarcities in land, food, water and natural resources, the government, the private sector and the economy cannot accommodate unchecked population increments without suffering a breakdown in public services and supplies of basic human needs.

Each child added to a family and the community is a great asset, the optimists claim. A huge population is a strategic tool for development under correct state policies with a growing economy. The more-body advocates cite the examples of China and India, each with a population of more than a billion that had defied conventional wisdom and had transformed their societies with the help of human and economic capital.

Current conditions strengthen the case against uncontrolled population increase. Poverty victimizes more than a third of Filipinos. Unemployment and underemployment are high, housing needs are unmet and water is becoming a scarce resource. The employment line to foreign jobs lengthens. The blessing of free universal education eludes millions of children. We continue to import rice for many reasons, including the loss of farmlands to development.

What it takes to become a developed nation

The promises of prosperity are unrealized despite 37 quarters of economic growth. We need, according to the wise men of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, 10 years of sustained growth, at an average annual rate of 8 percent to 10 percent. Failing this, we cannot hope to build the economy that is capable of producing well-paying jobs in the cities and the hinterland for every Filipino man and woman who needs one.

The President has informed us that the Philippines is poised for a takeoff, that in 15 to 20 years we shall become a “developed” country with a first-world economy. It is interesting that China and India, despite their tremendous growth, are still classified as developing states.

Economists, development experts and social scientists tell us a country may enjoy a breakneck 10-percent growth rate consistently, earn huge surpluses of foreign exchange, but until the quality of life of its people improves, it cannot move up the scale of civilization. How close or far are we from the wealthy nations that have spawned a new generation of millionaires but violate human rights, suppress the free flow of information, and deny their people the right to vote or to vote freely?

Our story on Thursday reported that despite the increasing number of Filipinos, the government has no plans to change its population policy.

Wise population policy as Arroyo’s legacy

Under this policy, President Arroyo has resisted the use of contraceptives and other forms of family planning other than natural methods, “a move applauded by the Roman Catholic Church but criticized by those who blame overpopulation for rampant poverty in the Philippines.”

There lies the crux of the problem. A policy that does not encourage married people to plan the size of their families or to space childbirth, give heads of families or unmarried adults information about or access to contraceptives, or offer the public choices on family planning, will help push population growth, create families bigger than planned or necessary or fail to check unwanted pregnancies.

Going into the last two years of her presidency, President Arroyo should think really hard about the legacy she wishes to leave the country and the Filipino people. One that she should work on is an informed, independent and courageous population policy that promotes responsible parenthood, compatible with development, justice and social equity, that looks to the future and the well-being of the nation.

The people’s president

The people’s president

CORY AQUINO has faced many challenges in her life and she has always faced them head on. She’s had bad times before. Her presidency was plagued by both man-made and natural disasters (those debilitating coups, the great 1990 earthquake, Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption), but through it all she remained a person of courage and unwavering faith. It is one of the many personal traits that make her unlike any politician I know, and perhaps in the end, she was really never much of a politician, but more of a humanitarian. Looking at her life, in and out of politics, it is clear that she does not merely pay lip service to good values and to moral action. She lived these values. She represented the best of what we hoped for in our leaders.

A lot of other leaders can learn from her. Unlike the current president whose political legitimacy remains elusive because of alleged electoral fraud, Cory’s legitimacy was never in doubt. She survived those persistent coup rumors and actual military coup attempts, particularly the worst of them in August 1987 and December 1989, because people believed in her presidency. Yes, even when she disappointed not a few of the citizens, those who wanted the Edsa revolution to be indeed more revolutionary, they still stood by her. Cory was their hero, the only one who could have rallied and unified the people against the dictator.

One of the real lessons in Cory’s presidential term is that democracy offers the best means of overcoming extremism. Restore faith in the elections commission and strengthen other political institutions, have a vibrant civil society, restore constitutional rights and free­doms, and you’ve got a chance of quelling military adventurism, communist and secessionist rebellion and what have you. At the heart of it all, democracy’s survival lies in the people’s conviction that their president and her administration is legiti­mate; that the power of the presi­dent comes from the people, not a case of the president of wielding the vast powers of her office to rule over a her people, which is what many accuse GMA of.

Ninoy Aquino, whose death woke the Filipino people from their apathetic stupor, used to say that Marcos would leave the country with so many problems, his successor would be lucky to last six months. Of course, how could he have known Cory his wife would be the one to succeed the dictator. Maybe, knowing his wife, he would have given her better chances.

Never underestimate a woman with resolve and a just cause. She has an enormous capacity to inspire, as she did and continues to inspire Filipino people, and the world.

Cory was Time Magazine’s Woman of the Year in 1987, among Time’s 20 Most Influential Asians of the 20th Century in its August 1999 issue, one of Time’s 65 Great Asian Heroes (along with Mahatma Gandhi, Lee Kuan Yew, Aung San Suu Kyi and King Bhumibol Adulyadej) in its November 2006 issue. She was once nominated to receive the Nobel Peace Price. She was the 2nd woman to give a keynote address to the US Congress (the first was Madame Chiang Kai-shek). There are so many other honors given to her by the international community that when she is criticized here by fellow Filipinos, it is somewhat like a prophet not being accepted in her own land. She was adored and still is by the world.

Perhaps the Filipino people just expected too much of Cory. She was after all mythical—the devout housewife of a fallen hero who took up the cudgels and ousted the dictator without a drop of blood. How could what happened next (the real nitty-gritty of governance with all the confusing noisy politics and all the problems) top that? Edsa was a miracle. Perhaps we forgot that people worked hard to make that miracle happen. It is not just God’s and it is not just one woman’s inspiration alone. And if we expected true-blue socio economic emancipation after Edsa, well, that’s a miracle we had to work hard on as well. Who knows, maybe if there weren’t as many coup attempts during her term, maybe. If all those people who sought to bring her down, could have worked with her instead, who knows what could have happened?

Cory lasted more than six months. She did finish her term She was, after all, the people’s president. And as a testament of the woman’s character, despite having a chance to run again—and she would have won by a landslide—she walked away from it all, well actually, drove away, from Malaca­ñang, in a simple privately owned Toyota sedan.

They say that power corrupts, but Cory Aquino’s personal probity was beyond reproach. Even her critics swore by it. She never personally profited from her stay in office. And when her tenure as president was up, she never thought of staying a day more, despite having the chance to. Which is a lot more than you can say from a president who would do anything and everything to stay in power.

Good luck and godspeed to you, President Cory. We are all praying for you and believing that you will get well.

Territorial baselines: Be quick but careful

Territorial baselines: Be quick but careful

God must really be keeping close watch over the Philippines and the Filipinos. Territorial baselines bills are pending in Congress—consolidated and passed in the House on second reading last December. But, as revealed by Rep. Antonio Cuenco, head of the House foreign relation committee, action on the bill has been stopped because the Department of Foreign Affairs had told Congress of China’s objections to the proposed law. He also recounted that a Chinese embassy official had informed him passage of the bill would be considered an unfriendly act by the People’s Republic of China.

If the law had been enacted and not frozen for fear that China would take offense, we would have given up “an almost colossal” part of our territory. This is according to Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, who takes pride in being an expert in, among other things, international law, and is the Senate foreign relations committee chairwoman.

Santiago has warned that if the Philippines declares itself an archipelagic state, as the pending House bill does, the declaration would contradict the Treaty of Paris which sets the boundaries of our country. The national territory defined in the 1898 Treaty of Paris, she said, is vaster than what would end up as our territory under the archipelagic definition allowed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Under the 1898 Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. The Philippine baseline law – in Republic Act 3046 and RA 5446 – is based on the boundaries defined under that treaty. Senator Santiago contends that “the Treaty of Paris sets out the International Treaty Baselines of the Philippine territorial sea.” But “the bills pending in Congress will eliminate such limits and thus, the Philippines would lose its boundaries.”

Declaring the Philippines as an “archipelagic state” would be a grave error because under the UNCLOS, the Philippines would end up being entitled to only 12 nautical miles of the territorial sea. This is “an almost colossal reduction from the wider boundaries of the International Treaty Limits under the Treaty of Paris.”

As an “archipelagic state,” Santiago warned, “our zone of sovereignty would collapse. Our internal waters would become archipelagic waters where the ships of all states will enjoy the right of innocent passage. In addition, foreign states would have the right of so-called archipelagic sea lane passage. Ships of all states would have the right of passage and their aircraft would have the right of overflight.”

The Philippines must submit its UNCLOS claims before the UN’s May 2009 deadline—otherwise we lose any claim we have on the Spratlys. But Senator Santiago warns that wrong wordings in any new law could also undermine the established claim of the Philippines on Sabah.

What should the Philippines do now?

The consolidated bill passed in the House in December 2007 would redefine the baselines of the Philippine territory to include the Freedom (Kalayaan) Group and the Scarborough Shoal off Zambales, and extend its exclusive economic zone by 240 kilometers.

Sen. Santiago also warned that a Philippines that is self-declared to be an archipelagic state would suffer environmental and marine pollution from ships freely entering its archipelagic waters.

The Philippines would then have less powers to discipline foreign vessels polluting our seas than we have now as a nonarchipelagic state dealing with ships in its territory.

The Kalayaan Island Group could actually wind up being defined as another archipelago different from the main Philippine islands. Santiago said that under international law the Spratlys could be termed “other islands” (not a separate archipelago) that falls under Philippine sovereignty. Under the UNCLOS, the Philippines as an “archipelagic state” would have to be defined as having two archipelagos—the Kalayaan Group and the main Philippine group of islands.

The bills now in Congress that would include the Scarborough Shoal in Philippine territory could pose problems because international law does not recognize the drawing of archipelagic baselines as a method of claiming territorial sovereignty.”

How should we prove our claim to Scarborough Shoal then?

Use the principle of “effective occupation under international law,” the senator recommends. The military exercises, the construction and use of a lighthouse, enforcement of laws against foreign vessels and nationals that have illegally entered the area, and many other political and administrative acts are proofs that the Republic of the Philippines has been effectively exercising sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal.