The belief that population growth is the primary reason for poverty is a great fallacy.

In fact, it has long been proven to be fallacious. This belief was first espoused by Prof. Robert Malthus (University of Cambridge, 1785) but was proven false by Prof. Simon Kuznets one hundred seventy three years later. For disproving the fallacy, Kuznets was awarded the Noble Prize in Economics, in 1971. This Principle of Malthus, that population grows geometrically while production grows arithmetically, became the basic assumptions in his Theory on the Iron Law of Wages which he posited was the primary reason behind poverty in Europe at the start of the Industrial Revolution. However, Simon Kuznets was able to validate scientifically that Malthus was all wrong because economic growth is fastest during the time that the population growth was highest. This was validated in Europe during the 100 years industrialization of the European continent. Prof. Yamamoto of Japan, held the same conviction also, based on his observation that the economic growth in Japan was the highest during the 1970s. He was referring to the dramatic economic takeover of Japan in the World Market for cars and electronic products during the last three decades of the 20th Century. The main reason for this correlation between population growth and economic growth is simple there was an increase in the demand pool in the population that grew. There were more buyers for products made, so naturally production grew and employment grew, and poverty was eradicated. The natural and expected result in the equation however did not happen in the Philippines, because purchasing power was removed from the population that grew. People could not buy because they had no money; and they had no money because they had no jobs or income earnings. The earnings that could easily have gone on to the people through industry were siphoned off by payments to a ballooning international and domestic debt, by tremendous tax cuts and tax holidays being given to foreign investments prejudicial to the internal economic growth of the country and most of all by the shameful and rampant corruption in the government. Instead of the people earning, it is the government official and a select few who were making all the money. Against this perspective, we therefore present our inevitable conviction that the proposed measure to limit family size to only 2 children is a useless exercise in demagoguery and an admission of failure. It is convenient for politicians to attack population when they are out of remedies for the countrys extreme poverty due to their unabated graft and corruption and because they are not willing to plug the leakage of income to only a select few. Poverty is the result of the connivance between government and the oligarchy to keep the ordinary Filipino out of the growth and expansion of the Philippine economy. Consider that there is no clear and sincere economic policy formulated in this country to lighten the load of ordinary Filipinos. Today, the national economy of this sovereign country is no longer ours anymore. We have already lost our middle income group. People are poor because our leaders prefer them to be ignorant and poor; because as ignorant and poor, they can easily be manipulated to vote for those corrupt politicians whose main ambition is solely to enrich themselves at the expense of the people. Sad facts to ponder are that today, almost half of the population are entrapped in poverty that is not of their own making and are experiencing literal hunger and deprivation of human rights. While we agree that prudence must be employed to determine the right size of the family for everyone, we are grievously concerned that some of our lawmakers are dangerously treading on moral grounds which are no longer the safe purview of economics. Life is never an area that can be manipulated by people, let alone politicians. This is not their turf. Let the one who creates life determine how it should be dispensed. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Manila (AsiaNews) A bill on managing population growth that was recently introduced in the House of Representatives met strong opposition from the Catholic Church for violating "religious and spouses' freedom". The "Reproductive Health Act" was submitted by Congressman Edcel Lagman. It speaks of "reproductive health", "parental responsibility", "population management", ideas taken from United Nations documents that are inspired by a radical ideology. Under the bill, "the State shall adopt an integrated and comprehensive policy on reproductive health in connection with sustainable human development and effective population management that values the dignity of every human person and affords full protection to people's rights".

The bill encourages "the limitation of the number of children to an affordable level of two children per family," and calls upon the government to "encourage two children as the ideal family size [. . .] to attain the desired population growth rate." "Population management" will also involve preferential treatment. "Children from [two-child] families shall have preference in the grant of scholarship at the tertiary level." The Filipino Catholic Church strongly opposes the bill. According to Attorney Jo Imbong, Legal Office Executive Secretary of the Philippine Bishops' Conference, "the bill makes a mockery of the inherent rights of the family. It defies the State's constitutional mandate to value and protect the institution of marriage, strengthen the family and foster its solidarity and full development," he said. The two-child policy "violates the spouses' right to religious belief [which does] not only mean the freedom to believe but also includes the freedom to act on one's belief." The bill also includes "a heightened nationwide multi-media campaign to raise the level of public awareness" about population issues. It also proposes a three-year tax exemption for manufacturers of family planning devices "and related reproductive health products." The bill's backers argue that the country's population growth, which stands at 2.36% per year (the highest in the world), is the main cause for inadequate government educational and health programmes. Others like attorney Imbong believe that run-away corruption in government is the main cause of poverty among Filipinos. (SE)

Based on the research of experts, family planning departments are currently considering lifting restrictions limiting the two-child policy to rural and minority areas, a CPPCC member said on March 6. Wang Yuqing, CPPCC member and deputy director of the Committee of Population, Resources and Environment said he is personally in favor of the gradual opening of the two-child policy. Currently, in the rural and minority areas of China, if the first child of a family is a girl, the family is allowed to have a second child. As the aging population problem has become increasingly prominent in China and the demographic dividend has reached a certain stage, this policy should also be gradually opened in urban areas, he said. Wang revealed that currently, related family planning departments are also considering this problem based on the research of many experts. He personally believes restrictions on the two-child policy will be lifted in urban areas at the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan period. Wang said that the two-child policy will not lead to a population boom. He said that birth rates in large cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, are decreasing because the cost of raising a child has increased and young people's attitudes have also changed. This is also consistent with the international trend. If quality of life reaches a certain level, the population will naturally decrease without government control. Chinas notorious one-child policy has been in the hot seat recently, as some officials argue that the decades old law has served its purpose and is inappropriate for todays economic and social environment. But perhaps what carries the most clout for a "one-child" policy reform is the recent discovery of a secret and successful two-child policy. The Times reports that 25 years ago, China authorized a secret experiment in rural Yicheng County (located 560 miles outside of Beijing) in which families could have 2 children if they adhered to certain conditions. The results of this clandestine endeavor? A lower population rate than Chinas national average, despite the opportunity and encouragement to pop out two little darlings. The Times reports:

The population of the [Yicheng] county has grown over the 25-year period of the scheme by 20.7 per cent, which is nearly five percentage points lower than the national average, despite families being allowed two children. The experiment also appears to

have redressed the imbalance between male and female births in China: the national average is 118 males to every 100 females, but in Yicheng the ratio was in line with the natural norm at 106 to 100. Another surprising result? When given the opportunity, the couples preferred to only have one child anyway: It appears, however, that some couples in the county wanted just one child anyway. One hospital doctor told The Times yesterday: More and more people only want to have one child. Its expensive to raise a second, especially in the town. The farmers still like to have two children. The findings of this experiment are met with warm welcome from some influential players, as Chinese legislators have been pushing for a relaxation of its family planning policy. China Daily reports that senior deputies to the National People's Congress warn authorities of the severe consequences of continuing with its current family planning system, such as creating complications for China's imbalanced population structure, aging population and long-term economic growth. But the recent one-child policy debate within China has not yet prevented its effects from spilling over into Hong Kong, where experts claim that Hong Kong's skewed sex ratio is one of the alarming consequences of the mainland's draconian law. According to a report in EarthTimes.org, there has been an increase in the number of mainland Chinese women birthing male babies in Hong Kong since here it is legal for doctors to reveal the sex of babies. The article states that mainland Chinese women are literally crossing the border to check if their babies are male and, if so, having them right there in Hong Kong. EarthTimes.org reports: The skewing of the balance of the sexes is the latest consequence of the easing of border restrictions between Hong Kong and China in 2003 and a landmark High Court ruling in 2001 that granted citizenship to any mainland Chinese child born in Hong Kong. "The most plausible explanation for this [skewed sex ratio] is the practice of sex selection," with one obstetrician commenting on cases where women canceled birth bookings after scans revealed they were carrying a female." Okay so the good news is that China's archaic family planning policy is under some intense domestic pressure for actual reform. And the bad news is that it is essentially raining men in Hong Kong. Still, some experts see a bright side. The article states that with some proper planning these children could breath some new youth into Hong Kong's rapidly ageing economy. And as for massive long term effects? Experts predict that the tipping of the sex scale will only have a limited effect on the sex ratio overall, as many of these men will go on to continue the practice of marrying mainland women and bringing them back to Hong Kong.

In August, Philippine Congressman Edcel Lagman introduced the Reproductive Health Act to the House of Representatives in Manila. The bill calls for "the limitation of the number of children to an affordable two children per family" and calls upon the government to "encourage two-child family size to attain the desired population growth rate." The following week, nine lawmakers filed two more bills seeking to address the supposed "over-population problem" by establishing "an integrated population policy and provide for reproductive health structures." The introduction of the bills has created a wave of controversy in the predominantly Catholic country and a strong admonition from both the church and pro-life and pro-family groups. A recent report from the Washington-based Population Reference Bureau identified the Philippines as the fastest-increasing population in Asia at 2.36 percent annually. The Philippines is the 12th most-populated country in the world, estimated at 83.7 million. Population projections predict it to increase to 147.3 million by 2050. The Philippine Department of Health has come out in favour of the two-child policy to address population growth in the country. In an interview with the Manila Standard, Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit stated that the proposal to encourage couples to have only two children is compatible with the government's advocacy of spacing a three-year period between pregnancies. Dayrit said that his department is willing to support the House bill as long as it is not coercive. "We are open to the idea, as long as it is not coercive and remains consistent with the position of the administration on birth spacing and responsible parenthood. We would implement family planning policies even if it conflicts with the stand of the Catholic church, provided they are lawful, legal and approved by the government," he said.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said that population control would not stand as a priority in her next six-year term and it was not included in her state of the nation address. House Speaker Jose de Venecia defended the bill, stating, "Our resources can only afford a small population and the two-child policy is part of my strategy to save the nation because over-population will kill the nation." Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. has linked the efforts to slow down the country's population growth rate through the use of artificial contraceptives to the United States' intention to maintain its imperialist domination of the world's economies. "This whole effort to propagate a two-child policy by all sorts of contraceptive methods and even abortion was borne out of a desire of the United States to control the economies of the world to sustain their predominant economic and military status," Pimentel said at the First Faculty Philosophical Symposium on Population Issues at the University of Sto. Tomas in Manila in September. Pimentel cited the existence of the U.S. National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM) 200, which concluded that the rapid population of Third World countries poses a threat to the national security of the United States. The study was commissioned in 1974 by then-secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. "The rationale was simple," Pimental said. "Growing population of these countries would mean expanding the domestic demands for their indigenous resources. That would, in turn, mean reducing the availability of those resources for the needs of the U.S." Pimentel continued: "In the view of NSSM 200, the solution to reduce the growth of those populations was by offering them aid, contraceptives or even the know-how of so-called safe abortions." He branded the promotion of artificial contraceptives as an "oxymoron," as the expulsion of a fetus from the mother's womb with the intent to kill would never be safe for the child concerned. Pimentel went on to state that proponents of family planning programs in targeted countries were being offered $5 million by the U.S. government, aside from all-expenses paid participation in international conferences, among other incentives. He accused the Bush administration of threatening to slash funding unless local family planning advocates could prove success in curtailing the birth rate. Pimentel surmised that the two-child policy was introduced to counteract the threat of the U.S. government to pull development funding. In his remarks at the symposium, Pimentel said the proposal to implement a two-child policy is based on the erroneous premises that rising population is the cause of mass poverty, that the country is now over-populated and the church's refusal to allow artificial contraception and abortion is to blame. Pimentel argued that poverty in the country is caused not by the huge population, but by the mismanagement of government, as evidenced by widespread corruption, failure to deliver basic services, inability to create the climate for business to thrive and provide work for the people, and the poor maintenance of law and order. He said that the advocacy of curtailing by law the right of the people, particularly the poor, to propagate ominously echoes the eugenics practised by the Nazis. "If they were to be that blunt, the message would be too gruesome to Filipino ears. Thus, they talk instead of terminating 'unwanted pregnancies' to curtail the unwanted rise of the country's population. Pregnancies, in their vocabulary, are more or less neutral in meaning. They blot out the idea that human lives are involved when they talk of terminating unwanted pregnancies," Pimentel concluded. The House of Representative is expected to vote on the three bills this fall.