2011 Population of the Philippines and Reproductive Health Bill

Year 2011 started with a news that the Philippine population is estimated to reach 95.8 million this year. This is according to Commission on Population using the 2007 growth rate of 2.04 percent.

I see two remarkable mistakes in this news.

First, statistically, the use of 2007 population growth rate is NOT accurate and NOT appropriate to estimate the current population. Since the late 1970s, the Philippine population growth rate has been steadily declining, except in 2000 level which increased a bit from the 1995 level. However, after that disruption, the trend of steady decline continues. In fact, the United Nations' Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) projects that the Philippines has a population growth rate of 1.9 percent in the period of 2005-2010. Then, it will be 1.67 percent in 2010-2015 period until reaching 0.5 percent in 2045-2050. (See the UN report here).

With a steady declining population growth rate, using the 2007 rate to estimate the 2011 population is totally incorrect and uncalled for. The Commission could have waited for the 2010 census to announce its official population count. This mistake leads me to the second mistake which may be inadvertent, somehow.

The second mistake is to augur the a new year with this fallacious and misleading figure to push for the Reproductive Health Bill (RHB). With this bloated figure, fear is being used by the Commission to drum up support for the Bill ahead of the announcement of the 2010 official census.

(We need to act now because population is exploding. Hmmmmm. Think of one or two million people of exaggeration in this population figure. Then think of Estonia which becomes the 17th member-country to adopt the Euro currency with only 1.4 million total population in 2010).

One of the major arguments of the Reproductive Health Bill (RHB) is that the growing population of the Philippines must be controlled in order to reduce poverty in the country. Proponents and supporters of this RHB sees the population as the major problem to development. They see the Philippines as overpopulated country with the sights of slums in the metropolis.

Let us show facts of the Philippine population.

Is the Philippines overpopulated? What is the measurement of overpopulation?

While it is true that the Philippines is the 12th most populous country in the world, the population density per square kilometer of the country is only 307 persons in the 2005 estimates, thus ranking 43rd in the world. (For comparison purposes, Singapore has 7,023 person per square kilometer, Taiwan has 639 persons, South Korea has 407 persons, the Netherlands has 401 persons).

Then, the  answer is NO, the Philippines is not overpopulated. Metro Manila is, and other big cities.

The significant question should be, is the population of the Philippines productive? Thus, population control will not answer this question, rather the state of education and employment opportunities will.

Another significant question is, are the national resources distributed to regions? Or few regions corner much of the national resources? The answer is not about population; it is about distribution of resources.

Post-script: Anyhow, exactly how will the RHB control the population growth? Among its ways, one is to make contraceptions accessible and available to all including married and unmarried, young and old couples; Second is to conduct reproductive health education sessions with young people who are enrolled in secondary schools in the hope of containing unwanted teen pregnancies; Third is to encourage an ideal family size of having two children for every family.