Stop at two, Pinoy couples urged

Stop at two.

Former health secretary Alberto Romualdez advised Filipino couples yesterday to have only two children to stave off a potential nightmare: the breakdown of social services and lack of food affecting all sectors of society.

Having only two children in every family is the "ideal fertility rate" in order to reduce the population growth to zero, said Romualdez, president of the Friendly Care Foundation, an organization advocating the awareness of reproductive rights for Filipinos. "If we maintain that fertility rate, which is the number of children on the average, we’ll get a zero population growth rate," he said.

Romualdez said the slogan "stop at two" was adopted from a t-shirt from Thailand given to him by his daughter. The t-shirt, part of a campaign in Thailand to limit the number of children to two per family, shows the late British prime minister Winston Churchill giving a victory sign.

With an annual population growth of 2.36 percent — the population is now at 82 million, with three babies born every minute — he said Filipinos may number 100 million by 2010 and this figure may double within 30 years.

Romualdez warned that with the Philippines’ gross national product growing at an average of only 4.5 percent every year, the country will not be able to provide basic social services and food to its citizens.

He noted that a Filipino family belonging to class A to C has an average of three to five children, while one from class D or E has an average of six to seven children.

"We need to actually ask families to stop at two or we’ll never reach zero population growth," Romualdez said.

He also said Filipino men often decide the number of children they plan to have, and added that women should also have some say in the matter.

"It looks like the males decide and a lot needs to be done with the advocacy of men," Romualdez said.

Officials of the Catholic Church advocate traditional methods of family planning and reject modern methods, which include the use of contraceptives.