Was that much ado about nothing, the presentation to the media of a newborn baby girl who was designated the 100 millionth Filipino, marking a historic population juncture for the country?
Baby Chonalyn, who was born to Dailin Cabigayan of Sampaloc, Manila, at the Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital in Manila last Sunday, did not earn that number in the literal sense. She was, in fact, one of 100 babies born in state maternity hospitals nationwide who were symbolically designated as the “100,000,000th Pinoy baby.” The government arrived at this number based on population projections by the Philippine Statistics Authority, which estimates that three babies are born every minute in the country. For her special status, Baby Chonalyn and her peers got a cake and gifts of clothes and blankets, plus the assurance that the government will provide for their health services in their growing-up years.
Activist-singer Gary Granada was quick to pounce on the hoopla surrounding the milestone. “Given the dismally low levels of birth registration among marginalized sectors, the figure 100 million reflects on government’s patent negligence and ineptness,” he posted in his Facebook page. “The July 2014 estimates from World Factbook put the Philippine population at already past 107 million.”
Whatever the accurate number—and the government, of course, must ensure that its data-gathering is as correct and timely as possible, since public policy inevitably flows from those figures and projections—what is clear at this point is that the Philippine population, already among the world’s biggest, continues to grow at a rapid pace.
The usual suspects are blasé about this condition. Fr. Melvin Castro, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ commission on family and life, reportedly welcomed the news on the ground that there would be more “young workers” for the economy. True, the workforce benefits from a large population of able-bodied men and women, and the infusion of a young, vigorous dynamic into the country’s socioeconomic fabric would only be most welcome.
But before those men and women become sufficiently able-bodied to contribute to the economy, they must be fed, clothed, sheltered, educated, nursed whenever they fall sick, and lent a helping hand when they end up in conditions of want and disenfranchisement. Before they become the vigorous and dynamic force that would hopefully steer the country to a more progressive direction, the government has to do its part by investing on their proper growth and development.
There’s the rub. The corollary to the birth of the 100 millionth Filipino baby are these numbers: Nearly 25 percent of that population living in dire poverty, some 13 million out of a job, 2.2 million opting for the loneliness and insecurity of working abroad to provide for their families back home, a maternal mortality rate of 221 per 100,000 births (the United Nations mandate for the Philippines for 2015 under its Millennium Development Goals is 52), some 700,000 children unable to complete elementary school and a much higher number—1.36 million—dropping out of high school (according to a 2010 education report yet) and income inequality between rich and poor that’s the highest in Asia (“the combined P760-billion net worth of the top 10 richest Filipinos in 2012 was equivalent to the combined annual income of 3.24 million Filipino families in the same year,” reported Interaksyon.com).
These are daunting statistics, and any administration faced with them has its work cut out for it. The Aquino administration finally succeeded in passing the reproductive health bill into law, but it would take years before its aim of reducing fertility rates to an ideal of two children per family can be felt. The Catholic Church will continue to oppose the implementation of the law, even as more children are born into impoverished families with no access to safe and effective means of family planning and maternal care.
Add to that a governmental system debilitated by chronic corruption, inefficiency and short-sighted planning, and thus unable to provide its citizens with the most basic necessities and services, and you have a recipe for generations of young Filipinos eventually lost to hopelessness and misery. Without the necessary spadework from the government, the opportunities presented by a burgeoning population that would power the national economy to greater heights will turn out to be a mirage.