Accents
Feeding, clothing, and sheltering
What's your own concern? What difference are you making for humanity? It was the visiting Australians' turn to ask after I've interviewed them about their work in the International Youth Ministry (The News Today, Nov. 16, 2005). My snap reply: 'Family planning and the healthy, proper way to do it. Population explosion is a big problem especially among the poor in my country.'
Therefore, with more verve and vigor, I reiterate here my opposition to the church's 'No to Contraceptives' and 'No to ‘Ligtas Buntis'' because the urgent problems concerning population should not be glossed over, because you and I cannot cast a blind eye on grinding poverty. No, we are not blind. It's just that many of us refuse to see.
Start with the men of the cloth, and wonder whether they are wearing blinders along with their pronouncements. Certainly, they belong to the group of the clear-eyed, but what is their response to the necessity of feeding, clothing, and sheltering the teeming masses and the legions yet to come? In the backdrop of awesome need, we know how inadequate charitable organizations are.
Popcom, the neat short-cut for the Commission on Population, says it bluntly: 'If left unchecked, the Philippine population will double in 35 years.' The result: Poverty will become so overwhelming that society will be fraught with crimes induced by an empty stomach. Thus, slowing down population growth is 'a given which transcends political considerations,' says Popcom. And, may I add, renders outdated and irrelevant the biblical decree to 'go forth and multiply.' Never mind if my parish priest will shake his head on this my declaration as long as my friend Popcom Director Vicente 'Bugoy' Molejona will agree.
Say, Direk, let's call a spade a spade. Flood the country with condoms, pills, IUDs, sterilization operations, other birth control devices, etc. I'm sure you are doing this now, and I hope there's sufficient supply from where they are coming lest we will be seeing more and more children living in shacks alongside railroad tracks, narrow streets and squatter areas. In suburbia, too, in subdivisions, in urban centers as well as in far-flung rural areas, families are becoming bigger and bigger. Indeed, the more, the sadder.
The human impact on the environment cannot be overemphasized. Think of soil erosion and landslides caused by a growing number of people who must eke out a living by felling trees, made worse by the criminal deforestation of big business. We live on fragile ecosystems that cry out stop to population explosion.
Overpopulation has been discussed in profound terms. In high school, we learned about the Malthusian theory of population growing faster than food supply. The population versus the natural resources. The population exploding while natural resources get scarcer. The divergent ideas provoked by Malthus' theory I leave to the economists. I can only cite a layman's or laywoman's example. Take the basic need for water. The La Mesa watershed in Metro Manila has remained in size while the people who depend on it for water have extensively multiplied. Do we hear the same story in Iloilo?
Popcom poses some probing questions: 'Are couples able to realize their desired number of children and the quality attributes that they want for their children? Will individuals and families be able to earn and save so that their living standards constantly improve over time? Can they endow their children with the education, health and nutrition needed to make it in an environment that is increasingly integrated with the rest of the world?' Questions the government agency itself, the church, the media, and society as a whole must work jointly toward affirmative answers. Realizable to a great degree through an aggressive promotion of birth control-to be discussed in the next issue.
(Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)