This story was printed from TODAYonline 
Thursday • October 2, 2008
A bill seeking to impose population control in the Philippines is a waste of valuable resources that would be better ploughed into education and infrastructure, a conservative think-tank said Thursday.
The proposed law comes at a time when countries that adopted similar policies in the 1970s are reversing them as they start to worry about supporting their ageing populations, said the economists at Manila-based University of Asia and the Pacific.
Its chief economist Bernardo Villegas said controlling the population would be "demographic suicide," and would put the blame for widespread Philippine poverty with "people who are not yet even born".
The bill is about 12 votes shy of passing the House of Representatives, according to its principal author and House member Edcel Lagman.
However, it lacks the support of President Gloria Arroyo, a devout Roman Catholic who could theoretically veto it even if passed by the House and the Senate. Lagman said a dozen previous population bills over the past generation had been defeated.
The dominant Catholic church has threatened to excommunicate legislators who vote for the bill.
Under the proposed law the state would have to fund a population programme, teach it at schools and to couples intending to marry and have government hospitals offer contraceptives, vasectomies and tubal ligations, an operation that blocks the fallopian tubes.
It would require the state to "encourage two children as the ideal family size".
The Philippines has among the highest birth rates in Asia, with the population growing at around two percent annually and expected to top 100 million in five years.
Villegas told reporters solving poverty that binds a third of the population required improving the quality of basic education, curbing corruption and devoting state resources to developing the countryside, where the largest concentrations of poor live.
"The greatest impact of your peso is in educating women," said Roberto de Vera, another economist at the same school.
Villegas said international studies showed the growth of per capita income was related to school enrolment rates rather than population control.
"Countries with higher human capital also have lower fertility rates," he added.
Contrary to popular convention, he said the fertility rate of Filipino women had fallen from six children in 1975 to fewer than three.
Even without state intervention, the Philippine population would peak at 111 million in 2025, with a maximum population density of just 370 people per square kilometre (0.39 square miles), he added. — AFP