Get real Philippines

A member of “get real Philippines” has asked me to publicize their site and I am happy to oblige. I am not sure whether this website is linked in any way with Nic Perlas—whom I wrote about a while ago—but the concept is similar; addressing the factors that hold the Philippines back in a holistic way.

I turned straight to an essay on population control by Manuel Gallego III, since without family planning and population control it is hard to see how the Philippines can "get real". [See these two sites for opinions that family planning in the Philippines is “genocide” or “fascism”.] Gallego provides data projecting that in the period to 2050 the populations of the UK and Japan will decrease by 2% and 25% respectively, while that of the Philippines will increase by a staggering 86% to almost 154 million. I have read estimates that are even more pessimistic and put the Philippines' population doubling time at 29 years. The implications of that are just too much to take in.

Gallego also proposes a number of practical measures to help the Philippines achieve zero population growth. This is where it gets tricky.

Some of his suggestions are non-controversial, such as tax deductions for institutions practicing zero population growth and free college education for families with one child. Others are extremely contentious, such as eliminating welfare benefits for families with more than one child. Since that means “free” public education, which is available today up to the high school level to all Filipino families at a nominal cost, the social implications would be huge and, to be honest, I am not sure that ending free schooling would really drive down the population growth rate.

Nor do I agree with the proposal to provide free powdered milk for each family having only one child — this just encourages enormously wasteful expenditure on infant formula when study after study has shown that breast milk is best for babies.

Most controversial of all is this proposal:

Compulsory sterilization and elimination of voting rights of parents of street children. While this example hardly qualifies as an incentive and may indeed be branded an outright violation of human rights, consider the following statistics on street children in the Philippines:
• There are 50,000 to 70,000 street children in Manila. Action International Ministries
• There are an estimated 1,200,000 street children in the Philippines. Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), 1991 Jubilee Action, 1992
• It is estimated that there are 1.5 million street children working as pickpockets, beggars, drug traffickers and prostitutes. End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT)

I doubt whether this would ever fly—the problems that arose from the compulsory sterilization campaign in India during the “Emergency” in the 1970s would surely put any other Government off repeating the mistake. I’m against it, but in passing I should mention that over the weekend I was talking to someone who works with a charity for streetchildren who said basically the same thing. The views of people like her, who are left to deal with the consequences of irresponsible parenting, have to be taken into account, though, as I said, I don't think coercion is the way to go.

Gallego’s suggestions are intriguing but I don’t think anything will beat easy access to contraceptives and public awareness campaigns.

Anyway, although I have mentioned a few areas in which I disagree with “get real Philippines”, I think it is a great site with lots of thought-provoking stuff on it. Check it out—you’ll like it.

Comments

[renan]

at the rate things are going, we might as well follow what the reverend jonathan swift wrote about in his satire ``A Modest Proposal.'' opps... :roll:

[Carla]

The population is exploding, therefore, neuter the buggers who breed like rabbits. That's getting real?

My problem with this site is how it gives the impression that Philippine problems arise from some fundamental flaw in the Filipino "character" (whatever that might mean) and especially, the character of the Filipino poor. The colonial experience, the dictatorship, the landowning elite, the structural defects that perpetuate corruption are somehow not party to the present problems; it's how we ARE, or how the poor ARE, that's to blame.

Well, if the problem is ontological, we can't really fix it, can we? Neutering would indeed be a logical solution.

[torn]

Carla -- I think you have been in the UK too long, you're the only Filipino I know who would use the word "bugger". To be fair to "get real", they are trying to look forward to the future so perhaps it is not part of their brief to dwell on the legacy of colonialism or the dictatorship. There are plenty of people doing that already and there is not much you can do about colonialism now. The other two issues you mention--the continuing dominance of the elite and the structural defects that perpetuate corruption--are much more current and I agree that they probably do more to hold the country back than defects in the "national character" (whatever that is). Still, the social and political institutions of a country and the national psyche perpetuate each other I think. For example, the Philippines' rigid class structure will remain as long as people accept it as "natural" and most here people do. Filipinos are fatalistic: poor people think of themselves as the "poor" and see no hope of personal advancement. Yet until people drop this idea of a fixed universe in which everyone has his/her own place, until the deference of the "yes mum, yes sir" culture is sent to the dustbin where it belongs, the social structure will remain unchallenged. So, while I agree that the problems are largely structural, the structures will not change until people change their mindsets. Yet people will not change their thinking while the structures are in place. Who can break this vicious cycle? That's the key question.

[torn]

Renan -- ha, ha. The fact that an 18th century satire is so relevant to the 21st century Philippines ought to tell us something don't you think?

[Peter Barbera]

It is a well known fact that nations with high poverty rates also have large birth rates. With the poverty level of the Philippines at about 74 percent,it is not surprising that many familes have 6 to 9 children. The increasing number of children provides the family with the stability of having a form of social security. It is like buying a lottery ticket. Your odds increase with the more tickets you buy as your odds will increase with the more children you have. Eventually one of those tickets will win you and one of those children will become successful.

[Daniel Machanik]

The Philippines has some very nice places to visit and many of the poor people there are friendly and honorable. Unfortunatley, the level of corruption there from politicians, law enforcement and the media is so widespread that the country as a whole is really quite hopeless. It's very sad that they always look to outside forces to blame when really a good stare in the mirror might reveal that many of the problems there are internally driven. Foreign investors have been flocking away from the country in record numbers with good reason. Daniel Machanik

[benign0]

Hi!

Long time no post!

I've set up a Wiki facility to see if I can get the best minds in the blogosphere to collaborate on a single "Solutions Manifesto" to address the fundamental issues of Philippine society.

Wiki technology is an open source application that is Web-based and allows anyone who logs on (even anonymously) to edit content directly. The application manages version and provides the Administrator some ability to control access and content; but all-in-all, it is open for all and the resulting content will merely reflect the quality of the contributions.

Check it out here:

http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/getrealphilippines_solutions/

If you click "edit page" on the left sidebar, you will be taken to a page editor facility that provides a WYSiWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) environment to edit and save that page. You can even add pages if you want.

Hope to see you there!

Cheers,
benign0