Debating population.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Randy David

OF the many problems the President ignored in her last State of the Nation Address, the most glaring, perhaps, is the population growth. President Macapagal-Arroyo's silence on this issue is not unexpected. From the moment she assumed the presidency in 2001, population growth became a non-issue. So when Malaca[currency]ang says it welcomes a debate on population policy, we know it's not serious.

The remnants of past programs to lower the country's alarming birth rate all but vanished under the present administration's strategy of benign neglect. The national government used the devolution of health functions to local government units as the occasion to erase population from its own advocacy list. Whereas the Department of Health champions programs like child immunization and SARS, favoring these with resources and sustained attention, it has left the family planning program to fight for its dwindling share of the health budget of every city and province.

I think all thinking Filipinos agree that the problem is not the size of our population per se. The problem is that, given the present state of our economy, too many Filipino children are being born to hunger, malnutrition, disease and illiteracy. They agree that something must be done about it, but they disagree on what needs to be done now to address this problem. Mass poverty is the other name of this state of affairs.

At the societal level, poverty is partly due to the slow growth of the economy and partly to the unequal distribution of resources. Those who emphasize the need to develop the economy first tend to look at high population growth as a problem. Those who stress the need to effect some kind of redistribution of wealth do not see population growth as a problem; they see the lack of opportunity and hopelessness arising from social inequality as the problem. Yet these are not mutually exclusive positions. Limiting the size of families may contribute to economic growth. But by itself economic growth does not solve poverty. And conversely, social redistribution cannot be a meaningful solution to poverty without some level of economic development.

I believe that, for societies like ours, the lessons from these two approaches are inescapable. We cannot take the road to sustained economic development at this point without adopting a clear national resolve to bring down our population growth rate. Likewise, we cannot hope to abolish mass poverty, or even begin to motivate our people to plan their families, unless the government makes a firm decision to actively support their basic needs for jobs, education, housing and health care.