Julie Anne joined us five days ago. One more member of a global population that now totals five and a half billion.
By the time she’s 21, she could be one of 8 billion people.
And if you believe the most pessimistic predictions, children like her will be condemned to a life of impoverishment. Scrabbling for what’s left of the world’s diminishing resources.
Here in the Philippines, it’s not hard to see why there’s a sense of panic. Sixty five million people. By 2020 the figure could double. The government says that’s a catastrophe. The country’s on a downhill run to disaster. And in its efforts to get the birth rate down, it brushes aside religious and secular opposition.
Dr. JUAN FLAVIER (Secretary of Health): In 25 years we will double. That’s horrendous. That’s from 65 million, you get 130 million. Again, I might be wrong. Maybe somewhere along the line there’ll be some discovery that will make that livable — fine if that happens, it’s all right. But suppose it doesn’t happen.
REPORTER: On the present day scenario you’d end up facing, what, calamity, or is that too simplistic?
FLAVIER: Sure. Sure. Food, maybe starvation. I don’t know. We are short of water now. And because of the shortage in investments in health, I have a problem with cholera in the country. I’m not talking future. Now!
Yet opponents of population control argue it’s not a problem of numbers. It’s a problem of equity.
BISHOP NESTA CARENO (Catholic Church): Above all, what they call overpopulation, it’s not really overpopulation. It’s the maldistribution of the wealth of the world.And of course, justice is a moral problem. And therefore the problem is also moral and religious. And that’s why we are in here, because of that.
The average Filipino is 19 years old. These girls are soon to start bearing the next generation. They are the main target, both of the Church and of the government.
But in a country which is 85% Catholic, it’s turned into a bitter battle for the hearts, minds, and wombs of the nation.
But younger girls are increasingly questioning the moral authority of the church.
These two sisters are going home to another night of rural poverty, with their six other brothers and sisters.
REBECCA: Right now I’m having a hard time with my family. There’s not enough money — not enough food.
For them the Church’s stand against contraception is out of touch and out of date.
REBECCA: I will have to be practical even if it means disobeying the church.
Increasingly, this generation of young women has new aspirations beyond the traditional role of child bearer.
REBECCA: I would want to have a small family because when you have a big family, it’s difficult and I have my own personal experience — I can see my parents having a hard time.
As the only literate member of her family, Rebecca’s education has given her options in life that her mother could never have dreamt of.
For Floralise, there was never any choice. She was trapped by her cultural attitudes and by her fear of contraception.
FLORALISE: I didn’t join any of the family planning programs because I got scared. I would have done it a long time ago.
REPORTER: Why is it that Filipinos have traditionally had such big families?
Dr. ALAGON: Well the reason for that may be based from way, way back. It is because Filipinos have this notion that if you have a large family, if you have so many kids, really somebody will take care of you when you get old.
As one of seven thousand health workers in the government’s birth control campaign, Dr Daisan Alagon wants to convince women like Floralise that they’re misguided. And to encourage the Rebeccas to hold fast to the new faith.
She tells the women of Tanza village that they don’t have to go on having babies.
There’s little emphasis on asking Tanza’s menfolk to bear a burden of responsibility for family planning. For now, at least, Dr Alagon sees them as a lost cause.
Dr ALAGON: Because mostly Filipino men think that if they go to the clinic for information for family planning it decreases their macho image. They become less manly.
In the drive to get birth rates down, it’s always women who are targeted, and that’s where the Catholic Church finds itself with an unexpected ally.
Dr. ALAGON: She answers us and she answers point blank, ‘I don’t want family planning. I’m not interested.’
Nelia Sancho, an influential feminist who argues women in developing nations have always been slaves to their sexual role.
Population control, they say, is not only coercive, but bound to fail. Because it doesn’t address the underlying problems. And Nelia turns to the so-called North, the developed nations, to make her point.
NELIA SANCHO (Women’s Movement): We know for a fact that in the North they have zero population growth, because their living standards have been raised, women have been educated, and women know when to choose and are given more options in terms of education and health and other services. And I think if do the same of improving the status of women economically, politically, socially, in our own countries, here in the South, that women will just decide to have less children.
That’s a view increasingly taken up by a broad range of critics who say population control policies since the 1950s have never helped reduce a nation’s poverty. What they see instead is a cynical political campaign by the developed world to avoid being swamped. And that that’s the underlying purpose of the UN’s efforts to promote birth control.
Prof. RANDY DAVID (Sociologist, Philippines University:To have a population policy that’s often been required as a precondition to access to foreign aid.
REPORTER: And do you see it as something of a quick fix solution, rather than dealing with the basic problems?
Prof DAVID: Indeed it is a quick fix solution to the population problem. If half of the resources they commit to the distribution of contraceptive methods were committed to improving the status of women in the rural countryside, perhaps the results from such an effort would be more effective in lowering fertility.
Dr.FLAVIER: There are people who honestly feel there’s no problem, and I say ‘Bless your hearts.’ I am the Secretary of Health, I am going to do what I see is part of my duty.
REPORTER: So you say ‘Bless your hearts but you’re wrong.’
FLAVIER: Yes.
REPORTER: And you have no doubts about that?
FLAVIER: I have no doubts from the point of view of 31 years of working in rural areas of my country. They’ve said that to me 30 years ago, they said ‘Don’t worry, by developing the country the whole thing will put in its place.’ 31 years later, we’re still in trouble.
At the root of the poverty so many developing countries face does lie corruption, appalling inefficiency, squandered resources, and greedy elites that treat a nation’s wealth as their own.
And ironically, it may be that the answer to what we see as over population lies not through reducing the number of people on the planet, but by increasing their well-being.
By the time she’s 21, she could be one of 8 billion people.
And if you believe the most pessimistic predictions, children like her will be condemned to a life of impoverishment. Scrabbling for what’s left of the world’s diminishing resources.
Here in the Philippines, it’s not hard to see why there’s a sense of panic. Sixty five million people. By 2020 the figure could double. The government says that’s a catastrophe. The country’s on a downhill run to disaster. And in its efforts to get the birth rate down, it brushes aside religious and secular opposition.
Dr. JUAN FLAVIER (Secretary of Health): In 25 years we will double. That’s horrendous. That’s from 65 million, you get 130 million. Again, I might be wrong. Maybe somewhere along the line there’ll be some discovery that will make that livable — fine if that happens, it’s all right. But suppose it doesn’t happen.
REPORTER: On the present day scenario you’d end up facing, what, calamity, or is that too simplistic?
FLAVIER: Sure. Sure. Food, maybe starvation. I don’t know. We are short of water now. And because of the shortage in investments in health, I have a problem with cholera in the country. I’m not talking future. Now!
Yet opponents of population control argue it’s not a problem of numbers. It’s a problem of equity.
BISHOP NESTA CARENO (Catholic Church): Above all, what they call overpopulation, it’s not really overpopulation. It’s the maldistribution of the wealth of the world.And of course, justice is a moral problem. And therefore the problem is also moral and religious. And that’s why we are in here, because of that.
The average Filipino is 19 years old. These girls are soon to start bearing the next generation. They are the main target, both of the Church and of the government.
But in a country which is 85% Catholic, it’s turned into a bitter battle for the hearts, minds, and wombs of the nation.
But younger girls are increasingly questioning the moral authority of the church.
These two sisters are going home to another night of rural poverty, with their six other brothers and sisters.
REBECCA: Right now I’m having a hard time with my family. There’s not enough money — not enough food.
For them the Church’s stand against contraception is out of touch and out of date.
REBECCA: I will have to be practical even if it means disobeying the church.
Increasingly, this generation of young women has new aspirations beyond the traditional role of child bearer.
REBECCA: I would want to have a small family because when you have a big family, it’s difficult and I have my own personal experience — I can see my parents having a hard time.
As the only literate member of her family, Rebecca’s education has given her options in life that her mother could never have dreamt of.
For Floralise, there was never any choice. She was trapped by her cultural attitudes and by her fear of contraception.
FLORALISE: I didn’t join any of the family planning programs because I got scared. I would have done it a long time ago.
REPORTER: Why is it that Filipinos have traditionally had such big families?
Dr. ALAGON: Well the reason for that may be based from way, way back. It is because Filipinos have this notion that if you have a large family, if you have so many kids, really somebody will take care of you when you get old.
As one of seven thousand health workers in the government’s birth control campaign, Dr Daisan Alagon wants to convince women like Floralise that they’re misguided. And to encourage the Rebeccas to hold fast to the new faith.
She tells the women of Tanza village that they don’t have to go on having babies.
There’s little emphasis on asking Tanza’s menfolk to bear a burden of responsibility for family planning. For now, at least, Dr Alagon sees them as a lost cause.
Dr ALAGON: Because mostly Filipino men think that if they go to the clinic for information for family planning it decreases their macho image. They become less manly.
In the drive to get birth rates down, it’s always women who are targeted, and that’s where the Catholic Church finds itself with an unexpected ally.
Dr. ALAGON: She answers us and she answers point blank, ‘I don’t want family planning. I’m not interested.’
Nelia Sancho, an influential feminist who argues women in developing nations have always been slaves to their sexual role.
Population control, they say, is not only coercive, but bound to fail. Because it doesn’t address the underlying problems. And Nelia turns to the so-called North, the developed nations, to make her point.
NELIA SANCHO (Women’s Movement): We know for a fact that in the North they have zero population growth, because their living standards have been raised, women have been educated, and women know when to choose and are given more options in terms of education and health and other services. And I think if do the same of improving the status of women economically, politically, socially, in our own countries, here in the South, that women will just decide to have less children.
That’s a view increasingly taken up by a broad range of critics who say population control policies since the 1950s have never helped reduce a nation’s poverty. What they see instead is a cynical political campaign by the developed world to avoid being swamped. And that that’s the underlying purpose of the UN’s efforts to promote birth control.
Prof. RANDY DAVID (Sociologist, Philippines University:To have a population policy that’s often been required as a precondition to access to foreign aid.
REPORTER: And do you see it as something of a quick fix solution, rather than dealing with the basic problems?
Prof DAVID: Indeed it is a quick fix solution to the population problem. If half of the resources they commit to the distribution of contraceptive methods were committed to improving the status of women in the rural countryside, perhaps the results from such an effort would be more effective in lowering fertility.
Dr.FLAVIER: There are people who honestly feel there’s no problem, and I say ‘Bless your hearts.’ I am the Secretary of Health, I am going to do what I see is part of my duty.
REPORTER: So you say ‘Bless your hearts but you’re wrong.’
FLAVIER: Yes.
REPORTER: And you have no doubts about that?
FLAVIER: I have no doubts from the point of view of 31 years of working in rural areas of my country. They’ve said that to me 30 years ago, they said ‘Don’t worry, by developing the country the whole thing will put in its place.’ 31 years later, we’re still in trouble.
At the root of the poverty so many developing countries face does lie corruption, appalling inefficiency, squandered resources, and greedy elites that treat a nation’s wealth as their own.
And ironically, it may be that the answer to what we see as over population lies not through reducing the number of people on the planet, but by increasing their well-being.