The Philippines: Top in fertility rate, low in quality of life

The planet's lands are shrinking due to climate change. The world population is exploding. Life is getting harder and harder to sustain.

The number of human beings in the world is increasing at rates that may no longer be sustainable by the available global resources. The land and maritime areas are not increasing but the population is rising beyond the world's capacity to contain. Food and water are getting scarce and both fauna and flora are fast diminishing. Overcrowding is expected to cause conflicts and wars as well as natural calamities and disasters. Life is getting harder and more challenging.

The top 20 most populous countries are India, China, USA, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, Ethiopia, Japan, Philippines, Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo, Vietnam, Iran, Turkey, Germany, and Thailand. You will immediately notice that most of these countries are in Asia, including the top four, followed by Africa and South America. There are few from Europe and North America. It is also clear that most of the populous countries have high poverty incidence and with lower quality of life. There is a very clear causal link between high population and lower quality of life and poverty as a necessary result of overpopulation.

India has a population of 1,428,627,663. That exceeds one billion with a B, followed closely by China with 1,425,671,352. That means that India has a mere a mere 295,631 over China and these two are both located in the Asian continent. The US is a distant third with only 339,996,563 or less than one-fourth of India's and China's population. The fourth placer is Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country with 377,554,122 people. Indonesia is also very large in terms of area and with no less than 17,508 islands, many of which are uninhabited. Number 5 is another Muslim nation, Pakistan which used to be a part of the old undivided India. It has 240,485,658 inhabitants. Among the top five, only the US is not in Asia.

Number 6 is Nigeria with a population of 223,804,632 followed by Brazil at number 7 with 216,422,446. The number 8 slot belongs to Bangladesh, another former component of India, with 172,954,319. Can you imagine if you combine the populations of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh and add that of Sri Lanka which all belonged to one nation before? They would practically constitute almost half of the world's total population. Number 9 is Russia with 144,444,359. And number 10 is Mexico with a population of 128,455,567. Mexico and Brazil lead the Latin American countries in population and in size, but still they cannot compete with Asia.

The eleventh is Ethiopia with 126,527,060 people, followed by Japan as number 12 with a population of 123,294,513. Number 13 is our beloved Philippines with a burgeoning population of 117,337,368 and still counting every minute of each day. We have an annual growth rate of 1.54%, which is higher than those of India, China, USA, and Indonesia. Our annual population rate of increase is also higher than that of Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia, Mexico, and Japan. Only Ethiopia, Nigeria and Pakistan have higher population growth rates. Our population density is 394 people per square kilometer, which is much higher than China, USA, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, Ethiopia, and Japan.

Imagine, there are only nine people for every square kilometer in Russia, and only 26 in Brazil, 37 in America, and 66 in Mexico. And we have 394. The Filipinos' fertility rate is a high of 2.7 while India has 2.0, Mexico, 1.8; USA, 1.7; Brazil, 1.6; Russia, 1.5; Japan, 1.3; and China, 1.2. The Philippines is among the topnotchers in making babies while having one of the lowest economies. That is why poverty is high. Unemployment is high, death rate is high, crime rate is high, and corruption is one of the highest. And yet, wonder of all wonders, there is still more fun in the Philippines.