Matthew Heyes / April 14 / Population
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/opinion/view/20080411-129756/The-population-solution
This article addresses the current population crisis in the Philippines and the conflicting views of experts, the government and religious influences and voices of their leaders. The crisis started when world rice prices suddenly rose. This is due to the fact that, because of a rapidly growing population, land is taken away from rice production and instead turned into residential developments. The rapidly growing population obviously needs an increasing amount of rice and this cannot be met by current production and even importation levels.
The government is ignoring the simple solution of halting the conversion of productive and even irrigated agricultural land to other uses. They are also ignoring the problem of the population growth rate by thinking of a political solution. Catholic bishops and their ultra-conservative allies are against the use of contraceptives although they do accept the government’s current policy of natural family planning. The government seems to be assuming that this is the option that would be considered more acceptable to Filipinos. Ramon San Pascual, executive director of the Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD), has pointed out in a statement that “the current population policy of the Arroyo government is problematic since more Filipinos prefer modern family planning over NFP and majority of those who do not practice family planning are the poor.” Fortunately this rice crisis has triggered a potential review of this policy especially as its promotion has resulted in little or no impact at all on the population growth. The PLCPD is pushing for a policy that is unbiased and includes both promotion of natural and modern family planning methods, improving access to information and services on reproductive health.
No comments:
Post a Comment