(Part 2)
As we saw in Part 1, the Philippines will continue to have a young and growing population for at least the next 40 years, time enough to give our present and future leaders the opportunity to introduce the necessary reforms in our political and economic institutions so that by the decade of 2040 to 2050, the Philippine economy shall have attained high-income status and, more importantly, bring down the poverty incidence as much as possible close to zero, as Singapore and Malaysia have already done.
We have to avoid like the plague the fate that has befallen Thailand: becoming a super-aged society before becoming rich. The main reason for this tragedy that has befallen this otherwise buoyant economy was the overemphasis on birth control as a tool for reducing poverty. In an aggressive campaign to push condoms and pills, the Government created a “contraceptive mentality” that is very difficult to reverse at a time when what society needs is to promote a higher birth rate, as is happening today in most countries that have realized that the real population bomb is the rapid ageing of the population, as Elon Musk repeats almost ad nauseam. This was the actual title of an IMF publication written by demographic experts David Bloom and Leo Zucker of Harvard: Ageing is the Real Population Bomb.
In an opinion column in Bloomberg, Tyler Cowen makes the point that today, “there is some evidence that shrinking populations are bad for the global economy. To me, however, the greater tragedy would be the failure to take full advantage of the planet’s capacity to sustain human life. No kind of family policy should be mandatory. But there should be policies that make a larger family a more appealing option, both economically and otherwise.”
This early in our demographic transition, we should make sure that no government policy, on the pretext of fighting poverty, would instill an anti-family and anti-life mentality among our population. There are many more positive ways of reducing mass poverty through the right policies such as emphasis on rural and agricultural development, delivering quality basic education, promotion of small- and medium-scale enterprises, the upskilling and reskilling of the existing labor force and many others. Learning from the desperate moves of countries like Singapore, China, and Thailand to encourage couples to have more children, it would be wise for the Philippine Population Commission to find other ways of implementing the Reproductive Health Law rather than obsessing over promoting the use of contraceptives.
As our fertility rate already has reached the below-replacement level, population policy should veer away from reproductive health toward human resource development. I particularly take note of an editorial that appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer back in 2022 that commented on the ongoing demographic transition that is happening in our country: “To ensure the productivity of the younger generation in the future, the educational system must address the shortcomings of the public school system, as evidenced by the poor showing of elementary school students in regional and global comparative tests. Government needs to invest more to ensure a quality learning environment that includes more and better equipped classrooms and facilities, better paid teachers, more available learning materials like books and lab facilities, and even basics as adequate lavatories and healthy canteen meals.” As many developed countries are suffering from very low fertility rates and the ageing “population bomb,” it is about time that we consider every baby born to a Filipino family as a singular resource on which to invest.
It is commendable that our industry leaders, strongly encouraged by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., are focusing more on reskilling, upskilling, and retooling the existing work force to match their knowledge and skills with rapidly changing technologies in the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors rather than giving undue emphasis to college degree programs that often fail in producing the right manpower needed by employers. As the editorial quoted above commented: “To prepare young people to join the work force, they must be oriented toward adjusting to the evolving demands of the job market, such as developing skills in new technologies. Government must also ensure that there would be jobs for them, once they finish their formal education.”
Despite the serious problem of the low quality of basic education in our public schools (not in the private educational institutions), there are more than enough workers already in our labor force of some 50 million people who can be reskilled, upskilled, and retooled in the technologies related to the so-called Industrial Revolution 4.0 (artificial intelligence, internet of things, robotization, and data analytics).
Instead of spending our scarce financial resources in preventing the birth of more babies (already at 1.9 per fertile woman), it is not too early to devote more attention to the plight of ageing Filipinos. As the same editorial suggested: “As for the elderly, the country must provide adequate material support for them apart from the pension given by the state-owned retirement bodies. Better and more affordable healthcare, especially the provision of maintenance medicines and medical procedures, is likewise necessary to prevent more serious and costly expenses down the line.” And most importantly for those who, like me, have been blessed with long lives (I am 85 years old), we should be encouraged to continue using our knowledge and skills in producing educational materials, training professionals in our respective fields (especially teachers), sitting in boards of directors, managing some NGOs, mentoring younger professionals, using our green thumb to add to food security by producing high-value crops in our home gardens, etc.
With some people in our government still harping on the need to spread the practice of family planning among Filipinos couples, it is heartening to read opinions in this publication supporting the view that a large population can be an asset to the economy. My fellow columnist in this paper, Bienvenido Oplas, Jr. wrote in one of his columns*: “The fastest growing economies in the world are Asian, led by India, China, the Philippines, and Indonesia with GDP growth of 5% to 7% in H1 2023, whereas Europeans were crawling at -0.2% to 1.2% over the same period.” He continued: “I think the main explanation for this is the dynamic domestic economies of these four Asian countries thanks to their big populations: 1.4 billion for China and India, and 275 million and 113 million for Indonesia and the Philippines, respectively. The beauty of having a big population is it also means there is a big supply of entrepreneurs and workers, producers, and consumers. So, when the global business and economic environment deteriorates, there is a big and strong domestic market to continue the business momentum.”
I could not agree more with Mr. Oplas, who concluded his column with a clear rejection of the continuing obsession with family planning among some government officials by suggesting that “there is a need to relax the implementation of the Reproductive Health (RH) law of 2012 (RA 10354). State funding of population control is wrong.” What we need is a “Productive Human Resource Law”!
(To be continued.)
*Global trade deceleration and economic growth due to large population – https://tinyurl.com/27rbynrc
Bernardo M. Villegas has a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard, is professor emeritus at the University of Asia and the Pacific, and a visiting professor at the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. He was a member of the 1986 Constitutional Commission.