At the Congress Night of the Manila Overseas Press Club, when Speaker Prospero Nograles was asked what he thought of the Reproductive Health bill of Bicol Rep. Edcel Lagman, the Speaker gave the floor to Lagman, who perorated on his bill espousing contraception to control population growth and the need for the people to be aware of their choices in planning their families.
The premise of the highly debated proposed Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008, according to Lagman, is that the booming population has worsened poverty. He anchored his contraception bill on the findings of some 29 UP economists, who claimed that population growth over the years would worsen poverty unless population is contained. Ergo, contraception is the answer.
Lagman seems to put too much weight on what UP economists say. He forgets that economists make conclusions on assumptions and other factors, which are not validated, much less proven. Show me an economist that has become a billionaire because of assumptions and conclusions, and I’ll show you a pig that can fly.
At the risk of repeating myself, there’s no empirical data that shows that overpopulation causes poverty. Poverty is the result of confluence of factors, like bad governance, graft and corruption (benefits don’t go to the bulk of the populace, but to the pockets of grafters and corrupt public officials) and unmitigated migration from the provinces to urban areas. The existence of squatter colonies in Metro Manila attests to this.
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The flawed premise of Lagman’s bill is in empirical data like figures from the National Statistics Office, which show that our population growth rate is 2.04 percent, and total fertility rate is 3.02 percent. The CIA World Fact Book has lower figures of growth rate, 1.728 percent; TFR, 3.00 percent. Our population density is 277 per square km. gross domestic product per capita is $3.400. According to a study made by former Senator Kit Tatad, 50 other countries have a much lower density, yet their per capita is much lower. Thirty six countries, Tatad stated, are more densely populated, yet their GDP per capita is also much higher. Kit asked: Are the few then always richer, the many always poorer? Not at all.
Empirical data also show our median age is 23 years. In 139 other countries, it is as high as 45.5 years (Monaco). This means a Filipino has more productive years ahead of him than his counterpart in the rich countries where the graying and dying population is no longer being replaced because of negative birth rates.
Lagman and his anti-life lobbyists must be told that the city-state of Singapore is now in full reverse after undertaking a policy of population control. The Singapore government is in fact encouraging couples to marry and even providing incentives. There’s a joke in the welfare state of Finland that’s controlling its population growth that by 2050, there will only be two Finns left, and that they don’t know whether or not they will be of opposite sexes.
Santa Banana, Lagman’s bill is not only jurassic and archaic, but against empirical data! It’s fraught with lies and fallacies!
PHOTO: immigrant family from China in Singapore circa 1958, from Elaine Sng.
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