Collectively caring about population and development

Do we need to bring our population size down?

Is a reduced population growth, at least in the next two generations, the answer to a progressive Philippine economy?

I say yes to the first question. An overshooting population will always be the first to suffer from poverty, depleted environment resources and poor land use planning (storm Ondoy and typhoon Pepeng showed us that).  My answer to the second is, let’s hear it from those running for leadership roles in the May 2010 national elections.

The launch last December 19 of the Mulat Pinoy website deserves close watching in the run-up to May 2010.

Mulat Pinoy brings a promise of  familiarizing and broadening our views, especially the youth, on PopDev or population and development. It is a joint project of the Probe Media Foundation Inc. and the Philippine Center for Population and Development.

The website will be the central platform of information on anything related to PopDev like fertility, migration, mortality, health and nutrition, employment, environmental resources depletion, consumption of goods and services, congestion, and other life-related processes.

The exchange of information will be through posting of contributed news, blogs, videos, and forum discussions. Taking their advocacy along the social networking path, according to the organizers, is a sure-fire formula for connecting to the youth who are not familiar with the issue. Almost half of today's 92 million Filipinos are young, aged 20 and below. There are 27 million young Internet users in the country, according to latest statistics.  Making them aware of population and sustainable development issues is the first step to making them think and later on, recommend how they, their elders and government leaders can move towards sustainable lifestyles.

Speakers from the Philippine Center for Population and Development said the Philippines' 92 million population makes it the 12th highest populated country worldwide. The projected 2010 population is 94 million. And in 2050, we will rank 10th among the most populated countries.

But this is what made sense to me --two in five Filipinos are poor, with incomes less than $2 a day (below PhP100). That budget hardly gives them any access to education, health, and a better quality of life. Born poor, die poor.

It makes perfect sense that the Mulat Pinoy campaign is also taking aim at the government leadership and the Presidentiables to present their roadmap on balancing population and development, before they leave Office or assume Office, whichever applies.

Bloggers, journalists, candidates for elective positions, and anyone seeking enlightenment on PopDev, can join Mulat Pinoy offline sessions in 2010 at its “Kapihans”, 2 - 4 pm, Bo’s Coffee, Glorietta 5 (Makati City).

Topics have been laid out already:

January 16 – Population and environment
January 23 – Government resources and population dynamics
January 30 – Population and housing
February 13 – Population and food supply
February 27 – Population and education
March 13 – Population and health
March 27 – Urbanization / Migration
April 10 – Mulat Pinoy synthesis