MANILA, Philippines - The country’s population is projected to hit 142 million by 2045, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA).
In a statement on its website, the PSA said the estimate is based on the latest 2010 census-based population projections.
“Around 50 million people would be added in a span of 35 years. This increase in numbers would take place even if the average annual growth rate is projected to decline significantly, from 1.73 percent during 2010-2015 to 0.65 percent during 2040-2045,” it said.
The current population is 100 million. It grew by 1.9 percent every year from 2000 to 2010.
“The graying of the country’s population is expected to continue over the projection period,” the PSA said.
In 2010, Filipinos aged 60 years and over comprised 6.7 percent of the total population. The age group is projected to account for about a tenth of the total population in 2025 and about one-sixth in 2045.
The proportion of those aged 65 years and over, which was 4.3 percent in 2010, is estimated to increase to 6.5 percent in 2025, and to rise further to 11.4 percent in 2045.
“On the other end, the proportion of children aged zero to 14 years is projected to fall,” the PSA said.
While one of every three persons in the population belonged to the zero to 14 years age group in 2010, the corresponding proportion would be one in five by 2045.
Less under 5 years old
Meanwhile, the percentage of children under five years of age is estimated to decrease rapidly, from 11.6 percent in 2010 to 6.7 percent in 2045.
The working-age population of 15 to 64 years, which accounted for more than three-fifths of the total population or 62 percent in 2010, would comprise more than two-thirds or 67.5 percent by 2045.
Women of the childbearing age of 15 to 49 years, who accounted for a quarter of the total population (25.7 percent) in 2010, would have a similar proportion (24.9 percent) in 2045.
The projections were prepared by the PSA in collaboration with the Inter-Agency Working Group on Population Projections and representatives of the Commission on Population, Department of Education, Department of Health, National Economic and Development Authority, Philippine Statistical Research and Training Institute and the University of the Philippines Population Institute.
RH Law
Former Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said the birth of baby girl Chonalyn and the recent Supreme Court (SC) decision declaring the Reproductive Health Law as constitutional should prompt the administration to immediately implement the RH Law with “reasonable alacrity.”
“An increasing population imperils finite resources and strains limited budgets,” he said.
“It is symbolic that baby girl Chonalyn was born at the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, which has long been reputed to be a ‘baby factory’ where inordinately numerous deliveries are recorded daily,” he said.
He added that it took reproductive health advocates more than 13 years and the leadership of Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. to get the House of Representatives to pass the RH Law.
The law encourages couples to plan their families, mandating the government to help them make informed decisions.
Though the SC has declared the law as constitutional, it struck down some provisions it deemed as coercive and punitive.
Lagman said the government should now extend reproductive health care, services and products to marginalized people who are willing acceptors of RH and family planning programs.
He said the Department of Health (DOH) should immediately procure medically safe, legal and effective contraceptives and devices for distribution to the poor and to local government units.
The DOH should also retrain barangay health workers “so that they could competently assist in the implementation of the RH Law,” he said.
He added that the Department of Education (DepEd) should formulate a reproductive health curriculum that private schools could adopt “so that RH good practices and beneficent results can be instilled early among the young.”–With Jess Diaz, Cesar Ramirez, Ric Sapnu