A position paper from UP opposing the RH bill

With Christmas just around this week’s corner, at least the pro-life advocates got one unexpected Christmas wish and this was the statement by Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile who said that the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill was not a priority in the Senate. Hence, no matter how much the Aquino administration tries to push the RH Bill, through their allies in the House of Representatives, it won’t have the same enthusiastic push from the hallowed halls in the Senate. At least this gives the pro-lifers more breathing space to educate more Filipinos why we shouldn’t support the RH Bill.

Still on the RH Bill, there is a position paper being circulated supposedly by faculty members, the students and alumni of the University of the Philippines (UP) who are stating their objections to the RH bill. But let me point out that at the end of this statement, it states, “The opinions expressed in this paper are solely those of the signatories and they do not represent the official position of the University of the Philippines.” Since the position paper is quite long, I will just reprint the pertinent details of this statement, which asks students, professors and alumni to sign this paper.

The position paper opens with an impact which declares, “Population is not an obstacle to development. The bills assume that a nation’s population hinders its development that is why they push for the promotion of a two-child policy, massive distribution of contraceptives, sex education (to acquaint young people with contraception), and sterilization, all of which makes use of taxpayer’s money.

However, as early as 1966, Nobel Prize winner Simon Kuznet’s research has shown that there is insignificant empirical association between population growth rates and output per capita (economic growth). Rather, it is the rate at which technology grows and the ability of the population to employ these technologies efficiently and widely that permit economic progress. Kuznets saw that the basic obstacles to economic growth arise from the limited capabilities of the institutions (political, social, legal, cultural, economic) to adjust.

He argued instead that a more rapid population growth, if properly managed, will promote economic development through a positive impact on the society’s state of knowledge. His findings have been confirmed by similar studies by the US National Research Council (1986), the UN Population Fund Consultative Meeting of Economists (1992). The government has to channel limited funds to job creation and education.

No doubt this very strong opposition to the RH Bill debunks what Filipino economists have long embraced that our poverty is the result of population growth. One of them is my former professor at the University of San Carlos (USC) Dr. Ernesto Pernia who is now a professor of Economics in the UP School of Economics in Diliman, who I’m sure would certainly refuse to sign this position paper.

I salute these brave UP professors, students and alumni for their opposition vs. the RH Bill, which is not based on the moral issues that the Catholic Church has fought vehemently, but rather gives us very professional answers on why the Philippines has remained a 3rd world country after being second only to Japan at the end of World War II. The key words are job creation and education, which have declined in the last 50 years.

So the position paper asks, “And so, why not create more bills that will strengthen these two factors instead of channeling our limited funds to contraception and sex education?” Perhaps that question should be directed to Rep. Edcel Lagman and his allies who obviously have succumbed to the pressure of the foreign lobbyists who do the bidding of the US government, which wants countries, like the Philippines, to reduce their population, through contraceptives that, in my book, are abortifacient.

I’ve been on the forefront in the fight against the RH bill and one of the things we’ve written repeatedly is that fertility rates in the Philippines have been decreasing. Well, the position paper apparently got the same figures and declares “Our Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has declined by more than 50% in less than 50 years: from an average rate of 7 in 1960 to an average rate of 3.1 in 2008. Our TFR is expected to reach the replacement level of 2.1 in 2025 without massive government intervention like the passing of a population control or RH bill. The passing of an RH bill will only accelerate this.

Finally, the paper says, “The latest November issue of The Economist entitled “Japan’s burden” spells out the effects of an aging population and it would be foolhardy for us as a nation to push ourselves deliberately towards that direction… Should this push through, future generations of Filipinos will be forced to pay for the mistake of government’s intervention to manipulate a decrease in our population and suffer its ill-effects as already experienced by other countries.” Hopefully a lot of UP professors, alumni and students would sign this document.

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