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.
