Emil Jurado: Overpopulation is a fallacy

In the mainstream media, more voices supporting the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill are arguing the case by pounding biased criticism and rhetoric against the Church leaders instead of educating their readers concerning the proposed bill in Congress. A reader can easily identify the anti-Church sentiment of these writers. They usually asked the Church leaders as moral guardians to self-examine their ad intra problems like how they dealt with the cases on child molestation by homosexual priests and the covered-up of these cases by the bishops worldwide.  If ever they presented the side of the Church, they tend to distort the message of the Church and attack her for being unmindful of the sad flight of the poor, as if the bulk of the problem of the historical poverty of the Third World countries, like the Philippines, is caused by the moral teaching of the Church on contraceptives. 

I found this discussion of journalist Emil Jurado of the Manila Standard Today useful for the anti-RH Bill. Here he debunked the commonly used reason for the poverty and misery of the Filipino people-- overpopulation. According to Jurado, our current population growth rate is at 1.98 percent, which is far below the 2.1 percent fertility rate set by the UN to our country. By the UN standard, we have no over-population problem and yet the Aquino administration and pro-RH advocates in Congress are still arguing along population control mindset. Below is the selected commentary of Emil Jurado on the subject. Kudos!

The quote from Mother Teresa today is apt to this topic: 

"It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish." 

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Overpopulation is a fallacy
By Emil Jurado
To the Point
Manila Standard Today (10 Aug 2012)

Anti-life advocates love to quote United Nations statistics to buttress their argument for the passage of the reproductive health bill, euphemistically called by the President as the responsible parenthood bill. It’s really population control which the UN uses in furtherance of Washington’s foreign policy in controlling the population of underdeveloped countries like the Philippines.

America wants to monopolize our natural and mineral resources for its own interest. Records show that after further studies, the growing population of underdeveloped countries are prejudicial to American interests. Younger people are more difficult to control than the elderly. Young people are also more vocal in resisting foreign intrusion.

The next question now is this: Is the Philippines that overpopulated so much so that the birth rate needs to be controlled through a state policy for contraception?

Empirical data show that the most populous country, China, is now an economic giant. Same goes for Indonesia, which is the most populous Muslim country. Here at home, the National Capital Region is the most progressive because it is the most populous.

And then look at the countries with a small population – Ethiopia, the Sudan, Somalia and Uganda. They are impoverished!

No less that the director general of the National Economic and Development Authority, Arsenio Balisacan, told the Senate that the UN had set a 2.1-percent fertility rate in the country. Our population growth is 1.98 percent. In other words, we are below the growth rate acceptable to the UN. We are thus not overpopulated even by UN standards!

The claim of the pro-RH groups is nothing but baloney.

As I have said, the RH bill is not only a religious issue. It is social, economic and political as well. The fortunes of politicians will rise and fall on these issue.

Yes, there are many of my colleagues supporting the RH bill. But look at their profiles. They are either conscripted media people and opinion-writers, and they are not Catholic. Most of the women opinion-writers are either trying very hard to be read by being anti-Catholic and anti-life, or they belong to the group of liberated women-feminist movement against dogma.