People

Since the 100-millionth baby was born at 12:06 a.m. last Sunday, the country’s population has grown by more than 20,000 persons in just this one week, extrapolating from the Philippine Statistics Authority’s data. In 2013, the National Statistical Coordination Board pegged our population at 97.35 million, which means in about a year we grew by 2.65 million people. There were 92.34 million of us in 2010, the year the Philippines earned the distinction of being the 12th most populated nation in the world, according to the United Nations’ Population Division.

A priest was quoted last week as saying that having 100 million Filipinos is “good news, not bad news,” and a “blessing.” All we have to do, he said, is “just give them an opportunity for education, for work, employment and the young population would become the economic powerhouse of a country.” 

In an ideal world, that would be true; unfortunately, here on the ground, in these fair islands, providing education and employment for 54 percent of the population – 54 million warm bodies – who are under 25 years is a gargantuan task that our resources cannot sustain. Do I hear the priest and all those clamoring for uncontrolled population growth committing to properly feeding, educating and caring for all the young people in the country, with more added every single day?

They vociferously bash the government for claiming to have wiped out the classroom shortage, saying it is all a lie because there are still overcrowded schools which hold classes in shifts to accommodate an ever-increasing stream of enrollees. Did it ever occur to them that perhaps the estimate of classroom shortage computed say in 2010, when this administration took office, and for which a construction program was developed, was quickly rendered insufficient by the runaway growth every year in the number of kids needing to go to school?

The United Nations Population Fund reports that ten percent of Filipino teenage girls have begun childbearing; at 15 or even 19 years old, can these mothers – practically kids themselves – reasonably be expected to provide for their babies and “give them an opportunity for education, for work, employment?” Great soundbite, but sadly not so great a reality.

Population is not an issue of poverty per se, but when population growth outpaces economic growth, poverty does become the issue. When a great mass of the people, especially the youth, are undernourished, barely educated and generally unskilled, how can they become the “powerhouse” to drive the economy? Unless and until we have the resources to feed, care for, educate and enable them to become productive members of society, we cannot be so irresponsible as to allow runaway population growth. Parents, especially mothers, must be allowed to have the means to determine how many children they want to have, and when, so that, as the UNFPA country representative said, “we can prepare the groundwork for... productive labor forces that fuel equitable economic growth; youth that contribute to the well-being of economies and societies; and a generation of older people who are healthy and actively engaged in the social and economic affairs of their communities.”