Malthusiastic
Filipinos Test Catholic Clout: Family-Planning Policies Urged To Help Strengthen the Economy. By JAMES HOOKWAY, Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2008 (Thanks, pq.)
“For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church has exerted its influence on the Philippines like it has in few other countries. That includes lobbying against the kind of family-planning policies that have slowed population growth elsewhere in recent decades. But now, as rice and gasoline prices reach records and the world’s population is expected to strain resources further as it swells to seven billion by 2012, population-control advocates are coming out in greater numbers here against what they see as the Vatican’s efforts to hold back the country’s economic potential…
“The Church is having none of it. Monsignor Pedro Quitorio, the spirited spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, argues that the reason the country is poor isn’t because it is overpopulated but because corruption and sloppy economic planning have made it poor. “And poorer countries produce more children,” he says, especially mostly agricultural economies, where having more children means more hands to till the soil and a better chance of family support in old age.
“Growing populations can help create markets, build industries and add to a country’s economic output, as long as the right policies are in place to allow that growth spurt to take place. Japan, for instance, supports about 130 million on a similar-sized land mass to the Philippines, which is home to 90 million people, most of whom are still supported by a fragile, agricultural economy.
“In many ways, rapid population growth is a sort of multiplier of bad economic policy…And in the Philippines, policy — especially its failure to root out corruption and create an efficient agricultural sector — has been bad…”
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
June 25th, 2008 at 23:14
To follow the Church’s logic: while we face the tedious task of untangling the political mess, we allow uncontrolled spawning thus leaving more people to starve in the meantime?
It will take us eons to be like Japan. How can they even make that comparison?
June 26th, 2008 at 03:35
To add to the whole other thing about Japan: they’re actually worried that they don’t have a younger population to take care of their rapidly increasing number of retirement-age citizens.
There will be a tipping point pretty soon where the government will have to rein in control and ignore what the catholic church has to say. It’s become a personal realization that the church has become more out of touch with the world and it’s changes by the day.
June 26th, 2008 at 07:16
Isn’t it curious that nearly all of the world’s poorest countries are all mainly catholic dominated countries? Rapid population growth IS the reason for all our present problems. We’ve all heard of people above 50 who begin reminiscing about the past by starting :”Noong araw, maginhawa ang buhay”, etc,etc. Because back then our population was just around 25 to 35 million, more or less. Sure, our politics was rotten from the very beginning, but because there were far fewer Filipinos to provide for, our old folks got by decently, even the minimum wage earners. Surely, a household with eight children to feed, raise, send to school,clothe, and care for will be much more difficult to manage than a household with just two children, right? Apply that principle into a nationwide scale, and you’ll understand why we’re in such a mess. Thomas Malthus is right, and will be proven right in the case of the Philippines.
June 26th, 2008 at 08:14
What nonsense, Monsignor! Yes, corruption and economic mismanagement are to blame, but overpopulation is greatly compounding the problem. If in a poor family, the parents are earning enough to support just one kid, and try to spend within their means, how does adding two more kids going to help them? Is it then the fault of the government because it is corrupt? What about responsible parenthood? I dare say it should be a mortal sin to have a kid if you’re not able to support the kid ’til he/she reaches adulthood.
I don’t have a problem with religion preaching its beliefs, but I have serious problem with religion interfering with government policies in order to institutionalize its own beliefs for everyone who don’t necessarily subscribe to the same.