EDITORIAL - Population taken as a joke

At some point a few days ago, the seven billionth human being was born. Most of the roughly 200 countries in the world marked the occasion by identifying one baby born close to the approximate time as their own symbolic seven billionth baby.

By and large, the occasion was marked with fanfare. In the Philippines, almost every newspaper splashed on their front pages the picture of Danica May and her mother following her birth at a hospital in Manila as the Philippines’ symbolic seven billionth baby.

But there were also grave concerns expressed in connection with what the latest figure on global population meant to the world and its people. The biggest question was how the world can cope with the corresponding demand on its diminishing resources.

The issue on population poses a particular concern for the Philippines, where a great debate is ongoing regarding proposed measures meant to address pressing population and family health concerns, measures mainly opposed by the Catholic Church.

To get an idea of how huge a billion is, let us compare ourselves with China, the most populous country in the world. China has a population of roughly 1.3 billion people. In contrast, the Philippines, ranked 12th most populous in the world, has nearly 100 million people.

This means that even if you take away the one billion from China, the remaining 300 million will still be three times as many as ours. On the other hand, the 300 million is less than a third of the one billion we did not consider. And the world has seven billion.

That is how mind-boggling the world population has become. And yet there are still some officials like Senator Tito Sotto who are irresponsible enough to belittle the significance of seven billion world inhabitants.

So what if the world population is now seven billion, he asked. All the seven billion can still fit into the state of Texas. He was, of course, just trying to drive home a point, albeit the wrong one.

The Philippines, with 100 million people, has a land area of 300,000 sq. kms. Texas, if it were to accommodate the world’s seven billion people, has an area of 696,241 sq. kms. or just slightly double ours. Clearly we are taking population as a joke, like Sotto the ex-comedian.