Overpopulation? . . .A response!

I got a reply from Selwyn Clyde M. Alojipan (who prides himself as a technical analyst or lecturer) on our article about overpopulation and since we don’t have enough space for his lengthy response, let me just reprint his pertinent queries and my reply to them. First of all, he is asking if I have any scientific basis for what I said… that if you fly around the islands of the Philippines, you could very well see that there’s still so much land for our people to use.

Of course, I don’t have any scientific proof of this, but if you wish, you could check our landmass versus our population so you could check this for yourself. What is clear to my eyes is that overpopulation is happening only in the urban centers of Metro Manila or Metro Cebu and I would like to say that this is a no-brainer. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see this fact for yourself. Just look at the landmass of Masbate from the air and you can see that you could put all the squatters into one big community there!

As for my suggestion to build new communities, towns, cities, Mr. Alojipan asks, "in order to avoid having squatter colonies full of haphazardly built shanties, you want the already cash-strapped national government to shoulder the massive cost of building all the roads, power plants, groceries, supermarkets, factories, shopping malls, churches, housing units, and everything else that are usually built by private land owners and businessmen. Where will the Philippine government get the trillions of pesos for that kind of never-ending spending spree?"

No sir, I never suggested that this should happen in one year or one presidential term… it should be the direction that government should focus on and perhaps in a decade things would change. There’s no doubt, finding money to fund this project is everyone’s concern, but when those new communities are in place, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) can slap this community with taxes just like the rest of us. Sure, we may spend trillions, but then the people in that new community would become taxpayers in their own right, while today, as squatters, they’re not contributing to the national coffers at all!

Like it or not, it is still a better idea than what is happening right now. I’m not going to brag that I’m a financial analyst, but certainly what the government would spend would have some return on investment, unlike today wherein government spends for the problems of squatters but the only return on that investment is the votes of squatters during election years.

Mr. Alopijan adds, "Be realistic! We can’t even depend on the government to supply the GSIS with enough funds for employees’ benefits or buy a multimegawatt power-generation plant without private sector funding so how can it do what you propose? Obviously, you have very little idea how a government should be properly run and how the private and public sectors operate and interact with each other. I would also suggest that you bone up some more on some basic principles of both economics and ecology before making such high-sounding but misguided proposals."

My reply to that Mr. Alojipan is, since you don’t know me, allow me to say that I know about the interaction between the private sector and the government more than you… you may insult me or call me misguided if you wish, but we have no choice in this, either we wallow in our present scum or improve ourselves… after all, there’s that saying that "Rome wasn’t built in a day!"

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Here’s another emailed response to another article that we wrote last week from Ronald Cruz [email protected] on the medium of instruction.

"Dear Bobit,

I highly appreciate your article "Medium of Instruction" dated Aug. 13, 2003. I’ve been working in Singapore since Jan. 2001 as an IT Consultant and I can say that the biggest advantage of Filipinos is that they can easily communicate and understand instructions from their superiors and colleagues. Filipinos are becoming in-demand abroad because of this quality and also because of their dedication to work. I seldom used English during the time (I was) working in Makati.

If you are in the Philippines and you speak in a foreign language they will call you "maarte". That’s why even in Makati offices (not all but mostly) English is not commonly used except during job interviews and business meeting with the big boss. Hopefully, we could embrace global changes and start with the way we communicate with one another. So to speak, English has become the universal language. Being a true patriot should not be only in words but more in action. Speaking in a foreign tongue doesn’t mean we don’t love our own language or are being unloyal to our motherland.

Whenever Filipinos travel abroad or invite foreign investors to establish business in our own land, English is the first "tool" we use in dealing with them. By the way, I only speak "Tagalog" because I am from Bulacan. I never had a chance to learn any of our dialects. If I travel in the Visayas or Mindanao and if the person I am talking to doesn’t speak Tagalog then the second best option is to speak in English.

I suppose Filipinos are well educated to understand English that’s why I said it’s the "second best" option. In years to come, I hope that we use English not only in schools but also in government and private offices. And on office premises, especially in Makati, if we could use English as the means of communication (even though we are all Filipinos) this will help make us more marketable abroad or help us entice more foreign investors to the country. Another thing, even our national hero spoke and wrote in different languages so people should not be mislead into thinking that speaking in a foreign tongue is unpatriotic. That’s all and thanks for reading my email, more power!

Best Regards, Ronald Cruz (OFW from Singapore)"

Thank you for your self-explanatory letter Mr. Cruz, you’ve made my day, especially because you come from Bulacan where Tagalog is spoken.

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow entitled, "Straight from the Sky" shown every Monday only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 on SkyCable at 8:00 in the evening.