RP now 12th most populous country

WASHINGTON — The Philippines has gone one more step up the world population ladder and is now ranked as the 12th most populated country in the world, the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau (PRB) said.

But the good news, to some extent, is that the Philippines is seen to maintain its 12th-place ranking until 2050, according to latest statistics released on Tuesday by the PRB, a non-profit, non-advocacy organization founded in 1929 to monitor population trends.

A predominantly Catholic country, the Philippines has a population currently estimated at 83.7 million. This is expected to grow to 118.4 million by 2025 and to 147.3 million by 2050.

The total world population now standing at 6.396 billion is projected to increase to 7.934 billion by 2025 and to 9.276 billion by 2050.

In the past three years the Philippines has been advancing inexorably up the population ladder — it was in 14th place in 2002 and 13th in 2003.

And all signs indicate the population will continue to grow before it stabilizes.

Despite the Arroyo administration’s apathy towards family planning, PRB senior demographer Carl Haub told The STAR there were signs the country’s fertility rate was slowly declining.

He said the number of married women between 15 and 49 using all forms of contraception has risen marginally to 49 percent. The number of women using modern contraceptive methods is up 33 percent.

"I think the desire to have fewer children is absolutely there in the Philippines. Couples who want to practice family planning do it irrespective of what the Church says," Haub said.

He pointed to Catholic countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and Poland whose birth rates are on the decline despite the clergy’s admonitions to the faithful to refrain from using contraceptives disallowed by the church.

Haub said a consequence of the increasing number of Filipinos going overseas in search of work is the tendency over the long haul to slow population growth.

The flight of Filipinos overseas has an interesting demographic effect at home because most of those who leave tend to be of child-bearing age, he said.

Going abroad means more than keeping the remittances coming, but keeping the country’s fast rising birth rate at bay.

Haub said the PRB’s latest statistics demonstrate that nearly 99 percent of all population increase takes place in poor countries, while population size is static or declining in rich nations.

Among the major industrialized nations, only the United States has significant population growth due primarily to immigration intakes and the higher fertility rates of Hispanic immigrants.

By 2050, industrialized countries are projected to increase their population by merely four percent. In contrast, the population of developing countries is expected to expand by 55 percent.

The Church wields considerable influence on policy issues in the Philippines and campaigns against officials who promote artificial contraception.

But this has not stopped lawmakers from filing a bill in the House which proposes two children per family in an attempt to control the high birth rates in the country, estimated at 2.36 percent annually, or 1.7 million new births every year.

Careful not to lock horns with the Church, Mrs. Arroyo has safely distanced herself from the issue of managing the rising population.

The President has said population explosion is not her foremost concern, calling on Congress instead to first tackle priority bills she had itemized in her five-point legislative package.

The five-point proposals are job creation and economic growth; anti-corruption and good governance; social justice and basic needs (pro-poor program); education improvement and youth opportunity, and energy independence and savings.

A devout Catholic, Mrs. Arroyo however expressed readiness to defend her staunch pro-life policy even as she said she is open to debates on the subject.