residential legal counsel
Sergio "Foot in the Mouth" Apostol has struck again, saying the government is
uncertain whether a big population is an asset or a liability. Is this guy
really speaking for the government? And if so, does Arroyo really have no
intention whatsoever to see to it that in the next two years in her term
something is done with the 2.04 percent yearly growth in population that if
unchecked would mean having 200 million mouths to feed 30 years from now?
Let’s revisit the Malthusian debate to see the folly of
having a runaway population growth. Malthus’ insight was that population grows
exponentially while food production increase linearly, resulting in an
ever-increasing gap between the two. The last 200 years, however, has shown that
Malthus was wrong. Food production, in fact, kept pace with the growth in
population.
But we are not talking only about food when we refer to the
resources needed to ensure a good quality of life for all, although plainly the
pressure on food is already evident in the current shortage of rice, for
example.
On top of nutrition, we have to ensure adequate health care,
good education and the infrastructure needed to sustain the well-being of the
new generation.
Here is where population management comes in.
Child-bearing women in the first quintile of the population
(the one-fifth with the highest income) give two births on the average. These
are the women who have the wherewithal to provide good nutrition and quality
education to their children.
Women in the fifth quintile, in contrast, give five births on
the average. These are the women who are in the least position to provide for
their children. Survey after survey shows these women want at most three
children.
Why should the government deny them easy access to methods of
planning their family size, as what the Gloria administration is doing? The
government is not spending anything on contraceptive devices and is not pushing
tubal ligation or vasectomy, options which are much cheaper in the long run.
The answer is because Gloria is afraid of Church leaders who
continue to insist only the "natural" family method, which basically means
abstention during so-called fertile periods is acceptable.
Oddly enough, the Church position is much closer to the
program of Malthus who, in an age where procreation had yet to be decoupled from
the sexual act, recommended temperance as the answer to his projected widening
population/resources gap.
But Apostol and his principal apparently are impervious to
the irony. They are proposing Malthusian solutions while continuing to appear
oblivious to the Malthusian problem.
