by Rene Ezpeleta Bartolo
PART 1
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a series of three award-winning columns of Rene B. Bartolo on population. The articles, first published in Mr. Bartolo’s Richochet column in The Mindanao Times, the city’s oldest newspaper, won first prize in the POPDev Media Awards bestowed by the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development, for three consecutive years, installing the columnist in the hall of fame.]
“Our Earth is now home to over 6.6 billion people. This year, 73 million people will be added to the planet, and by the year 2050, the United Nations projects that the world’s population will be between 7.8 and 10.5 billion. Ninety-nine percent of that growth will occur in developing countries..” (United Nations statement on World Population Day, July 11, 2007)
On July 15, a Sunday, I went to Mass, dutifully as a Catholic.
The priest’s sermon was about the observance of World Population Day the Wednesday before vis-à-vis the “Two-Child” policy of the national government, a legislative proposal which has long been in the doldrums.
“What will happen,” the priest asked the silent and docile congregation, “if the government prevents Filipinos from having more than two children? Time will come when there will be no more happy children playing on our streets. Time will come when there will be no more Filipinos.”
It was difficult to find sense in the sermon or decipher the line of logic of the parish priest. But he stood there, fervor in his voice, while we sat silent and listened. Spoken as if it were an article of faith, the sermon would stick long in the minds of the Filipino faithful present that Sunday morning.
A couple of years ago, President Gloria Arroyo declared she would support the “Two-Child” policy proposed by House Speaker Jose de Venecia. Along the same breath, however, the President made a pronouncement intended to be placatory to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
“The policy will not be mandatory, “she said. “It will be voluntary.”
There is cause for the President to be cautious and circumspect on matters of population control. The church abhors all forms of contraception, declaring them immoral, sinful.
Contraceptive pills, intra-uterine devices, condoms, jellies, and even “withdrawal”, are anathema. The only practice that the church countenances to prevent conception is the rhythm method, yet the church and its lay leaders have been remiss in educating the Catholic flock on what the rhythm should be.
Eighty-five percent of Filipinos are Catholics, so we pride ourselves with being the “only Catholic nation” in Asia. Yet, as a side comment, Catholicism has not prevented the Philippines from becoming the Asian country with one of the most corrupt governments.
The Philippine population stands at 89 million by the latest count. We are a predominantly Catholic country with one of the fastest-growing populations in Asia, at 2.5 percent. Around 2 million Filipino babies are born every year.
Government estimates that by 2040 the number of Filipinos will have swelled to 142 million. Unchecked and uncontrolled, the population surge can even reach 170 million in 30 years.
The specter of a population swell that will break the back of the economy already burdened by corruption is very real, considering the unbending stand of the Catholic Church against any attempt to stop or slow down the galloping population growth.
In 2005, Peter Wallace, president of EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit)-Philippines, a group that advises President Arroyo, summarized the bleak picture of economic versus population growth thus:
“In the past 25 years the Philippines has averaged 3.1% annual GDP growth, with a population growth of 2.5 percent. This means almost no improvement for the Filipino over those 25 years. This is about half, or less, the rate achieved by other nations in Asia.”
Wallace added: “The Philippines, demonstrably, can’t support 89 million; 170 million will be, quite simply, disastrous.”
An estimated 40 percent of Filipinos – 36 million — live below the poverty line, a factor that further exacerbates the already grim population picture. The poverty line is drawn at an income of 50 pesos (1 US dollar) per day.
A movie ticket costs 50 pesos — a poverty line day’s wage. The cheapest television set costs the equivalent of 50 days work, without provisions for food, shelter and other basic necessities.
Leisure is costly and unfamiliar to millions of Filipino couples in the far-flung farms and in slums of the cities, so much so that sex seems to be the only daily leisure.
Sex nonchalantly performed without regard for the prevention of conception is the crux of the population issue. And because the Catholic Church condemns contraception, more so abortion, as evil, Catholics often consider child-bearing as a gift and prolificacy, a virtue.
Three Filipino babies are born every minute.
Kaloy D. works for my family as a handyman. He tends the plants, takes care of the dogs, and does errands. He receives 100 pesos a day, a wage scale that is a cross between an agricultural, non-plantation worker (164 pesos a day), and a domestic helper (1,500 pesos a month). His daily income makes Kaloy luckier than 36 million other Filipinos. [To be continued]
At 32, Kaloy has 6 children – a boy and 5 girls. Two of his children are in school this year; he rotates their education yearly to save on costs. His wife is, again, on the family way.
“You and your wife should go easy on child-bearing,” I told him once. “Yes, sir,” he answered laconically. When I learned his wife was pregnant, I told him again. “I thought you had decided to refrain from having another child.” He bit his lip and said nothing.
Kaloy is scared of the expected cost of childbirth and of the prospect of another mouth to feed. “Unsaon pag pugong nga mabuntis si Misis, sir?” (How can I prevent my wife from getting pregnant?)
Kaloy is a Catholic. His predicament is shared by 76 million Catholics in the country.
The war is on against any attempt by government to slow down population growth, like the proposed “Two-Child” policy. The war is waged in the pulpits all over the nation. I had my taste of that war last Sunday.
The policy, should it ever become law, is more an apology than an answer to the growing population problem. It will be a law that does not compel but cajole. What for is a toothless law?
President Gloria Arroyo, for all her pronouncements to curb the population growth, will not cross the Catholic Church. The church was actively behind the unseating of two presidents – Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada. Arroyo herself was a beneficiary of the awesome power that the Catholic Church wields.
In August 1999, Congressman Roy Padilla Jr. authored a legislative proposal which sought to legalize abortion in special cases: pregnancies resulting from rape or incest; where the mother’s life was endangered by the continued pregnancy; and where the fetus was determined to be defective even while inside the womb. The Catholic Church immediately rose in arms against House Bill No. 6343, and the Padilla bill was never heard of again.
Manny Arejola, head of the church-based NGO “Sanctity of Life”, boasted in 2005: “Over the past 3 years our lobby has managed to stop more than 30 ‘anti-life’ bills from passage into law. These included legislation aimed at legalizing divorce, bills making the morning-after pill available, and attempts to push a diet of ‘hedonism’ (meaning, sex education) on school children.”
The government cannot expect the Catholic Church to change its posture which is sculpted by edicts fashioned in the corridors of the Vatican. But it can change its own posture and perspective vis-à-vis the church – from endless accommodation and outright subservience to one of reasoned and relentless pursuit of public welfare.
Both the government and the church should re-engineer their relationship on the Constitutional provision of the Separation of Church and State. The role of the State is general – ensuring public good and improving the quality of life of the Filipino. The role of the Church is promoting the faith and saving the souls of the flock.
Kaloy D. is at a loss. The 100 pesos he earns daily is barely enough to feed his growing family. Rice is 24 pesos a kilo; the cheapest fish is 60 pesos; house rental, light and water total to 35 pesos. Medicines and clothing are on hold, and so are the other little things that should lend quality to the life his family lives.
He realizes that the coming of the 7th child will mean an additional load to him and his wife, and the children that came ahead.
For the other six children, there will be a little less food, a little less clothing, a little less medicine, a little less chance for education, a little less future, a little less hope.
In the summation of things, it will mean a little less of everything. [Published: July 23, 2007]
