ABANDONING the country’s family planning program has led to increases in poverty and lack of provisions such as food and social services, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
In the budget hearing on Thursday, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said these issues linked to the increase in population have become an “imperceptible crisis.”
Pernia said a country’s population and development are strongly linked. He said this is why it was important to continue the family planning program of the government through the full implementation of the Responsible Parenthood Reproductive Health (RPRH) law.
“It’s not a firefighting kind of thing; that is why it’s a longer, slow-moving, imperceptible crisis. And I think if we had sustained our family planning program since the start …the country would have been much better off,” Pernia said.
Pernia said if the Philippines only continued its population program, the country would have had sufficient resources to invest in social services, infrastructure, school buildings, and investment in human capital, education and health.
He added that the country would also be on a par with its neighbors in Southeast Asia. Many of these countries have seen faster growth alongside the implementation of a family planning program.
He cited Thailand, which had the same population as the Philippines of about 27 million in the 1970s. Thailand continued its program while the Philippines did not.
As a result, Pernia said, Thailand’s population still increased but at a slower pace, bringing the total population of the country to about 97 million. This is significantly lower than the Philippines’s population which is expected to reach 107 million by year-end.