PH population growth slowdown and national population policy
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2019 16:30:01 +0000
THE latest news about population trends and demographics in the country are both encouraging and troubling.
Encouraging, because the numbers point to a modest deceleration of population growth that could redound to stronger economic growth and better balance and distribution of the national population.
Troubling, because the latest population news has brought to our attention the fact that there is apparently an agency in the government whose work is principally dedicated to the management or perhaps even control of the national population. And this is the Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) in the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA).
It was Popcom, not the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), which made the media announcement about the new population trends and underscored the deceleration of the country’s population growth.
The fact remains that Philippine population will continue to grow at a rate far higher than most countries, including our neighbors in the Asia-Pacific.
The population trend is positive or negative depending on how you spin the story.
To buttress its point that national population policies and programs are working and are backed by most Filipinos, Popcom highlighted the deceleration of population growth by .21 percent, as the population growth rate of 1.73 percent in the latter half of this decade dipped to 1.52 percent.
On the other hand, you could also underscore the fact the latest trends and statistics do not point in any way to a reduction of the national population, either now or in the future. It is only the rate of population growth that has slowed down a bit.
Those who stress this point believe, as research studies have shown, that population is power and is a key driver of economic growth and influence. They are wary of the trap that various countries have fallen into in the attempt to control and manage their populations.
The Philippine Statistics Authority has projected that by July 2020, there would be 108.7 million Filipinos — 1.2 million lower than the PSA’s earlier estimate of 109.9 million.
Popcom Executive Director Juan Antonio Perez 3rd said the projected increase in population between 2019 and 2020 is about 1,483,828, representing an annual increase of 1.38 percent.
According to Perez, the new information from the PSA is proof that the nationwide efforts on reproductive health, as well as family planning are yielding positive results, as they are steadily being embraced by Filipinos.
But he warned against complacency. He contended that there are still lingering issues — management of limited resources in the face of climate change, unrestrained internal migration leading to congestion in urban areas, as well as the disturbing rise of adolescent and teenage pregnancies nationwide, among others — that must be addressed as a new decade begins. “We still have a lot of work ahead of us with regard to population management and family planning. It would still take a comprehensive approach that links government efforts to nongovernment organizations and private sector.”
Not everyone is comfortable with the idea that there is actually a government agency that seeks to manage or control the national population.
Popcom, in truth, is a bequest of constitutional authoritarianism and the martial law years. The Commission on Population and Development is a government agency created through Republic Act 6365 (“Population Act of the Philippines”). The agency was mandated by Presidential Decree 79, or the Revised Population Act of the Philippines in 1972, to be the central policy-making, planning, coordinating and monitoring agency for the Philippine Population Management Program.
NEDA Secretary-General Ernesto Pernia appointed Juan Antonio Perez as NEDA undersecretary for population management and development, and as the executive director of Popcom.
At this point, it is not clear whether NEDA is trying to reduce the country’s population or just trying to slow down its growth. It has set much store by family planning and the reproductive health law.
There has been much debate about the reproductive health law, but little about what ought to be the government’s population policies.
It is time for this debate.