Editorial, January 5-11, 2011

An Exploding Population

It came as a great relief to hear the Pope proclaim last year that contraception was now considered acceptable by the Roman Catholic Church.

n a recent interview with Dr. Roger Marten, a specialist in the area of population control, he expressed concern about countries such as Uganda whose population is currently expanding at an alarming rate. When asked about his area of greatest concern he replied without hesitation “the Philippines.”

he Philippines has one of the highest birth rates, if not the highest birth rate in the world, and the current rate of expansion of our population is simply unsustainable. As a country we are not even able to grow enough rice to feed the current population, so what hope do we have to feed future generations?

he current population of the world is around 6 billion, but this figure is estimated to rise to 9 billion by the year 2050. Some countries such as China have lower birth rates, Chinese people being prohibited by law from having more than one child per family. In some European countries the birth rate is actually going down.

n the Philippines there will probably be between two to three times as many people by the year 2050. Did you ever stop to wonder where the food will come from to feed all these additional mouths? We should remember that the birth rate is increasing in many other Asian countries too, each of which will have less and less rice to spare for export in the coming years.

As food becomes more scarce the crime rate will undoubtedly soar as people become more and more desperate. Civil order might well break down and be replaced instead by the order of the gun. Only the strongest and most ruthless will survive. Is this what we want for our children, and for the succeeding generations of Filipinos?

If we as a country wish to climb out of the poverty from which so many of us are compelled to endure today, then one essential prerequisite is to reduce our current birth rate.

Should we fail to do so the consequences will not only be dire, but they will also be irreversible./TE