Population - beyond economics (Last of three parts)

The more the merrier doesn’t apply in resource distribution especially in a capitalist regime. For many an economist, population is, and will always be, an economic issue. The more the “miserier”. But apart from resource allocation, overpopulation returns myriad and deeper social implications.

While the lack of classrooms and teachers has been a long protracted battle for government to find shelter and educate school children, it is also a problem for many underprivileged and big families altogether. Ade, our household assistant, cannot just send all their children to school even if she and her husband would find the means to do so or had the strength to work for long hours. To care and tend for the physical and emotional needs of her ten children is just physically next to impossible. And Ade’s family is not unique to the reality that seeps in our province and in the urban centers. She is like the rest of the mothers who have more than half of their children drop out of school eventually. And like them, some of her grown-up children have to be deprived of the privileges of youth in order to work as helpers for a neighbor to support their growing family.

I heard that her teenage daughter is contemplating to marry the motorcycle driver next corner. Like most teenage marriages in our neighborhood, they are expected to raise a large family and often even larger than their parents’. And because they too lack the means to support their children to school, there will be more and more children who will never get the chance to finish their education and end up like Ade or worse, become enemies of society.  

This has been the cycle ever since. This cycle will never be broken until we put some breathing space for population to stabilize so government resources can be fully distributed where they are needed the most – education and social services. This can only be achieved if we take an aggressive stance to rationalize our population policy.

Population control is a contentious issue. The debate (for and against) on the RH Bill have reached far and wide -- from its economics to its Theology. What’s missing in the discussion is the everyday tragedy that takes place at the basic unit of society. I believe that a meaningful discussion of the RH Bill is to take our microscope and observe the miserable events unfolding at the family level every single day of their lives.

There are two things that the State and the Church must address in the debate – to resolve the present and prevent the present from happening in the future.

I believe it is the duty of the State to do what is necessary to address the present ills and I would agree with the Church that we must remove corruption in the system to manage our resource to deliver the most benefit to those who have less in life. On the other hand, it is so frustrating to see how the Church sternly criticizes legislation to control population and yet offer no concrete solutions to curb it or offer only too little to alleviate the troubles of others. What does the Church do to help Ade or to families who share the same fate as hers? When I asked the same question to a friend priest, he replied “The main duty of the Church is to address our spiritual needs because that is the most important.” But of course. How can I argue with that? It leaves me wondering, however, why the Church had to teach its flock to say the Lord’s Prayer everyday and ask God to give us our daily bread. Isn’t it also the duty of the Church to look after the temporal needs of others like what Christ did?

I am no theologian, but I think the reason why the first plea in the Lord’s Prayer is to give us our daily bread is because we cannot worship God with a hungry stomach. On the same token, does the stand of the Church against the RH Bill matter to the everyday life of Ade’s family? Of course not! She does not understand what the Church thinks nor have the time to listen to what her church says because what matters to her is to see to it than no child of hers would go hungry for the day. Simply put it, the recommendation of her church to go for natural family planning is something that they know too little of or don’t know at all. It is doomed to fail. In fact, it has already failed.

Looking beyond the economics of demography is the benefits of science not only to help reduce population, but the prevention of maternal deaths most of which could be avoided through family planning and reproductive health services. With the advances of modern science, population control can now be done in a safe and responsible manner.

To curb population is a state and political duty. To give what is due to Caesar is to respect the opinion of the state on matters of public welfare. For so long as our population policy is attuned to the Constitution on the rights of the unborn, then our conscience is safe.

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