"The stop-at-two children as the ideal family size is achievable, and this would allow economic growth to meet the needs of disadvantaged social groups."
"The stop-at-two children as the ideal family size is achievable, and this would allow economic growth to meet the needs of disadvantaged social groups."If there’s any doubt that our population growth has exceeded manageable levels, we only have to take a look at the dense crowds in Divisoria market during the Christmas season, when even the police appeared totally helpless in enforcing social distancing rules during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Take it from the Commission on Population and Development (PopCom), which reported recently that the country’s population is expected to swell to 110.9 million at the end of this year. This is 1.45 percent more compared to 109.5 million in January 2020.
This year’s estimate is based on projections using the 2015 population census by the Philippine Statistics Authority as well as projections by the University of the Philippines Population Institute and the United Nations Population Fund.
The agency warned, however, that the population outlook might still increase to as many as 111.1 million because of unintended pregnancies caused by the lockdowns during the pandemic.
The Philippines has one of the highest population growth rates in the ASEAN region at present. That’s a dubious distinction, from where we sit, given our current level of economic development.
Women of reproductive age, 15 to 49 years old, are estimated to have the greatest potential growth in numbers or an increase of nearly 338,000.
Based on the commission’s data, adolescents aged 10 to 19 years old will only increase to 38,224 next year. But this age group would contribute a 21.04-percent rise in unintended pregnancies.
Popcom expects around 102,000 unintended pregnancies this year as a result of service reductions on family planning due to community quarantine restrictions.
So what needs to be done?
With the increasing proportion of Filipino women of childbearing age, Popcom says, there is a need to put in place measures that would ensure their easy access to family planning information and services to prevent unplanned pregnancies, especially since the pandemic has yet to subside.
Filipino women need to have healthy and safe pregnancies given the risks from COVID-19, according to Popcom executive director Juan Antonio Perez III.
“We also need to ensure that Filipinos’ aspirations on having two children on average are attained, amid service reductions in family planning due to the pandemic,” he added.
The stop-at-two children as the ideal family size is achievable, and this would allow economic growth to meet the needs of disadvantaged social groups.
The government must also address lingering issues as the country enters a new decade. These include management of limited resources in the face of climate change, untrammeled internal migration leading to congestion in urban areas, and the disturbing rise in adolescent and teenage pregnancy nationwide.
This would still entail a comprehensive approach that links government efforts with those of non-government organizations (NGOs) and the private sector so that population management programs such as family planning can reach every community in all 42,000 barangays nationwide.
In other words, the citizenry should also do their part, as their decisions on family planning will affect communities.
We really don’t know to that extent the Catholic Church’s insistence that the only acceptable means of birth control is the rhythm method—and that all artificial means of birth control are against its doctrinal teachings—has affected our population growth. Our view is that science has developed far more effective methods of birth control through artificial means, and our own Reproductive Health Law in fact encourages all possible means, both natural and artificial, to bring down the annual population growth especially in Metro Manila and other urban centers.
At the onset of the 1970s, our population stood at only 35.8 million. At the time, it was drilled into the minds of groups in the forefront of the struggle for radical social change that the country could still sustain a population three times that number, or around 108 million. We reached that number last year, and the question that we must now confront is this: Given our current level of economic development, can we say that we can support a rapidly growing population in the years ahead?
Roughly one-fifth of the total Philippine population now lives below the poverty line. The administration targeted a decline in the poverty rate from 21 percent to 16 percent by the end of 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic threw that projection way off the mark.
Our runaway population growth is a burden that we should strive to collectively lift through effective implementation of the reproductive health law and responsible family planning.
ernhil@yahoo.com
