Phillipine Problem: Population Explotion

Philippine Problem: Population Explosion
I. INTRODUCTION What makes the population explosion a problem? This splurge of growth alerts politicians and economists because of the reason that human beings need resources in order to survive. Since there are limited resources, there would come a point wherein there would be no more resources to sustain life. The Philippines is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with an estimated 99,900,177 number of inhabitants as of July 2010. The government is concerned about the huge number of inhabitants in the country, which can cause widespread food shortages, and outbreak of diseases thus suggesting the use of contraceptives for family planning. The Church says that the problem is not overpopulation but there is a problem in redistribution of wealth, the church is against the use of such things (contraceptives), and only advocates the natural way of family planning. This paper will talk about the leading causes and effects of overpopulation, and the role of the church and the government in resolving this problem. II. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TOPIC The Philippine’s problem with population must be one of the top concerns of the nation. This paper aims to make the people aware of the devastating effects that overpopulation brings and to urge the people, together with the government and the church, to act in solving overpopulation. Overpopulation in the Philippines can be caused by an increase in birth rates and with it a decline in death rates because of advances in medicine, and it can also be cause by the lack of education among people. And the effects of overpopulation are countless; some are poverty, food crisis, unemployment, health problems, and environmental degradation. III. CONTENT One fundamental cause of overpopulation is the decline in death rate. Due to the inventions and advancements in medicine man has found cure to once fatal diseases. These advances, better nutrition and improved health care, lead to longer life expectancies for the Filipino people. Improvements in medicine have helped us combat many illnesses and prevent death but it also brought with it the problem of overpopulation. Also, because of the advancements in medicine has also increased the birth rate, because of the discoveries of mankind, better nutrition and medicine which induces conception are now available to people, thus leading to higher fertility rate of human beings. There is no doubt that these advances are great achievements and it is something to be proud of but it has also become a cause of overpopulation. Lack of education is another main cause of overpopulation. There are people who do not understand the need to control the growth of the population. They are unaware of the implications and effects of overpopulation. Due to their ignorance, they do not use family planning thus contributing to overpopulation. People in rural areas, parents usually have more children compared to middle-class or well-off families believing that the more children they have, the more people there are to take care of them when they are old and when they are not able to take care of themselves. Illiteracy can lead to unemployment, and those who are unemployed have nothing better to do than stay at home and procreate, this would account for the high population in least developed areas. These are some of the reasons why the Philippines is the 12th most populated country in the world. Table 1: The World’s 15 Most-Populated Countries. The effects of overpopulation are ghastly for the country. Poverty is one of them; poverty is the state of being extremely poor. An estimated 32.9% of the population is living below the poverty line; this means that over thirty-three million Filipinos are experiencing poor living conditions. Studies show that rural areas usually have the most number of newborns/children in their community; these people are usually unemployed, having nothing better to do than stay at home and pro-create. They are ignorant on what it means on bringing up a child, their newborn would most likely live in a life of poverty, only contributing to the problems of the country. When a country is over populated, there would be hardly enough food to support themselves. There wouldn’t be any surplus of resources to sell, thus resulting to a lower GDP of the country. This would lead to starvation, and for the government to prevent this, they would rely on foreign debt; contributing to more problems for the government. The government would fall into constantly increasing debt, which would be hard for them to get out of. Unemployment is also one problem, because with ninety-nine million people there are just not enough jobs to support the population. Unemployment causes high levels of crime because it would lead people to steal things in order to survive. Overpopulation does not only affect the economy, it also affects the environment. People take up space, therefore more people means less space for farmlands and forests. Natural resources and habitants for animals are consumed at a rate that does not allow for natural sustainability. In addition to that, energy sources are depleted because more and more people are in need of it. Human beings excrete wastes and pollution that finds it way to water and natural habitants, contaminating the water, and killing wildlife. And air pollution would be increased because of factories increased production to meet the demands of the population and greater consumption of fossil fuels. A bigger number of inhabitants in the Philippines would lead to greater consumption of resources, which produce wastes/ pollution. With air pollution and a decline of good quality water, diseases could easily spread. The effects of overpopulation are limitless therefore the country must work together in order to resolve this problem. The problem of overpopulation is a social and political problem for the state and an ethical and moral problem for the church. The role of the church is to form ethical and moral statesmen and people who will be responsible in establishing s just society. The role of the state is to make policies to answer the problem of overpopulation and base these policies with the church’s wisdom and morals. Although the church and state must be separate and one must not interfere with the doings of the other; the Philippines is a Catholic nation and the church practically dictates what is right and what is wrong. It is inevitable that the church has a great influence on the decisions of the state even if we say that these two should be separate. Hence, the church’s role is to form ethical and moral statesmen and people, the statesmen to base their policies and studies on these ethics, and for the people to use their experience and base their decisions on proper ethics and the wisdom that the church has provided. IV. CONCLUSION Overpopulation is a problem that would not resolve itself. It has effects that would continue to decay our quality of life, our economy, and our environment. The growth of the population in the Philippines cannot be stopped but it can be slowed down through proper guidance of the church and the state. Statesmen and the church must educate the Filipino people, most especially those in rural areas, about the consequences overpopulation brings, they must be taught on how to use proper family planning measures, which is one way of solving overpopulation. Economists say that by the year 2050, the population of the Philippines would double, meaning there would be two hundred million people. This would only cause more problems; therefore, the nation must act now in order to prevent catastrophe from happening.

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