100
MILLION FILIPINOS
by
Antonio C. Antonio
July
27, 2014
“As
of 12:06 am today, the world welcomed the 100 millionth Filipino” (Rappler,
2014)… meaning, our official population is now 100 million. What is the significance of this bit of
information? Can we just brush this
aside as another mundane statistical figure?
Can we consider this news item as another fun addition to our many
trivial stories? Is this a non-problem?...
I seriously don’t think so.
“100
million Filipinos” could also be spelled in a different way…
“overpopulation”. Some of us will say
that “overpopulation” is a relative term which, more often, is considered as
spatial in nature and character (meaning: occurring in or existing in space
and/or the availability of space)… and, therefore say that the Philippines is
not overpopulated. This argument may
seem to be right because our countryside has so much empty and uninhabited areas. But overpopulation cannot be determined by
the number of people living in a given measure of land. Overpopulation can best be determined by the degree
of competition for resources and the quality of life of people.
Overpopulation
weakens the core of the socio-economic and political structure of the
Filipino. Competition for resources, in
relation to overpopulation, can be an economic, a social, a political, and an
environmental problem as well. We could
even say that overpopulation is a combination of all these problems or, at the
very least, intertwined with each other… to name a few, (a) Economic because overpopulation
will only thinly spread resources and meagre resources will spell lesser
quality of life; (b) Social because Filipinos will have to go elsewhere to make
ends meet and this crack in the family structure (the Filipino’s basic social
unit) will only bring about social stress to the erstwhile close-family ties foundation
we are known for; and, (c) Political because overpopulation will only bring
more chaos to an already volatile political situation where the rich are
getting richer while the poor are growing in numbers and citizens are losing
faith in their government’s capability to offer stability due to pervasive graft
and corruption.
Competition
for resources also has profound effects on the environment. With 100 million mouths to feed and an ever-increasing
rate of population growth, more space will have to be converted from forest
land to agriculture and from agriculture to residential and commercial use. This unnecessary stress on our forest has
definite negative effects on our ecosystem… and ecological degradation could
only lead to more dire consequences foremost of which is desertification.
Wanting
to learn the root cause/s of overpopulation in the Philippines, I did an
internet research and two related causes became apparent… (1) Lack of education;
and, (2) Ignorance. Most internet
research materials say that people here do not have sufficient knowledge on the
use of contraceptives because the powerful Roman Catholic Church disapproves any
form of sexual education and birth contraception. And because of political expediency,
government continues to fail in bringing down the population growth rate.
Let’s
hope and pray that some sort of middle ground is reached by these influential
sectors in Philippine society on our worrisome population growth issue soon. Or
else, we will only add to the number of people lost in the labyrinth of
ignorance… after 100 million Filipinos.
(Please
visit, like and share Pro EARTH Crusaders and Landscape Ecology UPOU on
Facebook or follow me at http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/ )
No comments:
Post a Comment