A warning from fishpens

Whenever I see derelicts scrounging trash piles for leftover fast food rejects, I can’t help but feel appalled at how much unconsumed food go to waste. I once asked a friend who managed a branch of a famous food chain if it wouldn’t be much better if the company distributed the uneaten food to street urchins instead of discarding them in the bins?

Of course, we can’t question company policy, but consider this: In 2010 the United Kingdom pegged national food waste at £13.7 billion while the number of hungry people around the world was estimated at 925 million.

So kudos to the Philippine Daily Inquirer for bringing to light our wasteful habits which are really unacceptable in these times when world hunger is a paramount dilemma. However, the food supply or the lack of it is just a segment of the problem. The uncontrollable upward spiral of the national population is worth looking at as well. Food scarcity results because men continuously violate nature’s law of supply and demand; our planet simply cannot feed the growing number of mouths anymore.

It’s about time we nipped the problem in the bud. Keep the population at bay by giving people access to reproductive health information and methods, particularly family planning, since I believe that such is the long-term solution to overpopulation; it will not only keep everyone’s stomachs filled, it will also improve the quality of life in general.

It is through family planning that maternal health is promoted. But this can be done only if serious family campaigns would be implemented in the country as this would help married couples understand the ills of overpopulation and encourage others to either exercise abstinence or educate people about safe sex techniques, and arm them with adequate knowledge of contraceptives.

In the long run, we would be able reduce the cases of maternal deaths in the Philippines. Studies show that about 4,000 women die in the country each year because of pregnancy-related causes.

Furthermore, family planning brings about economic and social benefits. With family planning, the student-classroom-instructor ratio will become favorable. And the GDP per capita will rise. It will also benefit the environment as a smaller number of humans translate into fewer ecological footprints.

But with the stark absence of basic education on family planning in the country, people are forewarned against the harmful effects of overpopulation—food scarcity, climate change and poverty, among many others.

I find it therefore fitting to say that we must do away with the obsolete notion that ang (maraming) anak ay ang yaman ng lahi (Children are a nation’s wealth). In this case more is not merrier. If we don’t heed the threats of this looming crisis we could end up like those fishes in the Batangas fishpens—belly-up.

—BEN DE LEON, president,The Forum for Family Planning and Development Inc.