By : Hermione Mary Anne A. Cabie

"Salat Nguni't Sapat" by Paul Hilario

A

What really is the role of the Filipino youth in building his community, his region, and his country?

At a time when there is the threat of mass extinction in less than 50 years unless the current rate of population and industrial growth is checked, aggravated by environmental decay, the Filipino youth appears at the crossroads and must make quick decisions.

For indeed, after more than 40 years of progress, vast areas of the developing world have started sliding backwards into poverty, not helped at all by continuing increasing population growth rate.

In the Philippines itself, where there are roughly 65 million people, the annual growth rate has remained at a constant 2.4 percent since 1984. At the same time, the crude birth rate has slightly dropped to 31 per 1,000 population as of 1988 as compared to 33 five years earlier.

Unless the 2.4 per cent annual increase in the national population is reduced－ here the government appears determined to achieve such goal－there will be a continuing pressure and a regrettable plunge to depths of poverty.

With estimates that the Philippines population will be about 83 million by the year 2000, the Filipino youth comes under greater urgency to help raise the alarm and either start to join some campaign to help reduce the population growth rate.

It is only by doing this, by getting on the campaign and by actively participating in such movements that the Filipino youth can hope to help improve the quality of human life in a just and humane society.

B

No less than environment and research expert Dr. Celso Roque has put forward that the relationship of population to environmental quality “is bet seen in terms of population density and poverty.”He has added that the Philippines' population density－ 178 persons per square kilometer－is higher than that of China’s, the world’s most populous country, with roughly a little over a billion people and a population density of 108 persons per square kilometer.

In this respect, the warning in Stockholm by two American biology professors－ Paul R. Ehrlich of Stanford University in California and Edward O. Wilson of Harvard University in Massachusetts－comes into focus: That saving biodiversity is saving ourselves.

For instance, there are visible signs of urban blight－not only in Metro Manila, the gateway to the archipelago but in other urban centers in the countryside－like garbage heaps which have, all these years, contributed to the gravity of air pollution. Rivers and streams are steadily being polluted and most are already biologically dead.

In the countryside, the destitute in search of land and fuel have invaded the country’s forests and, in their ignorance and despair, thoughtlessly chopped down trees and degraded the land and water supplies.

Apart from the ecological devastation, this situation has threatened agricultural production and food supply and intensified the migration of farm people to the cities which have quickly become congested, polluted, dirty, and dying if not yet dead.

The youth must join hands with the other sectors in opening the yes of the others to the effects of environmental deterioration which has been caused by rapid population growth and industrial neglect.

In achieving this goal, the Filipino youth, in close association with his co-heirs or the young, recognizes the close inter-relationship among population, resources and environmental factors.

In the communities where he lives, he may join organizations or set up clubs and associations that raise warning and alarms on the dreaded possibilities of a galloping population, a destroyed environment and the insufficient resources.

C

The United Nation Children’s Fund has repeatedly observed that Asia, home to more than half the world’s children, still contains the majority of the world’s poor. One does not need to appreciate statistics on population density in relation to poverty to realize that there is a problem challenging the Filipino youth, the same youth the country’s national hero Dr. Jose Rizal had described as the hope of the Fatherland.

The Filipino youth, by birthright the true and rightful heirs of a rich legacy that is distinctly Philippines, must stand up now while there is still time. After all the young in the country constitute a big chunk of the population, many of whom live in tumble-down shacks in congested urban centers. And the youth can easily relate with this group, given their language and idealism as well as aspirations.

Something really must be done in the Philippines, which is part of the developing world.

The Filipino youth must carry with him certain givens in his campaign against unchecked population growth rate. For instance, in the other major regions of the developing worlds, development has been derailed by a 30 per cent fall in the price of raw materials and the accumulation of a staggering debt of more than $1,000 billion.

Repayment of capital and interest are claiming 25 per cent of export earnings and the developing world is now transferring $20 billion a year more to the rich nations than it receives in new aid and loans. Says the UNICEF: “In many nations, the poor have seen very little benefit from the billions of dollar which were often so irresponsibly lent and so irresponsibly borrowed.

“Yet now, when the party is over and the bills are coming in, it is the poor who are being asked to pay. When the impact becomes visible in raising the death rates among children, rising percentage of low-birth weight babies, falls in the average weight for height of the under-fives, and falling school environment, then it is time to strip away the niceties of economy and say that what has happened is simply an outrage against a large section of humanity.

The Filipino youth as a well-meaning partner in nation building must derive a lesson from its neighbors in Asia and the Pacific in so far as their population growth rates are concerned in relation to their respective economies.

In Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand, three of Asia’s newly industrialized economies, delaying and spacing births brought about higher infant survival rates, better health for mothers and children, and a better life for the family benefiting the community and the whole rural sector thus easing the pressure of migration to the urban areas.

Indeed, there is wisdom in the perception that the persistence of poverty on this planet, caused by unchecked population growth, is ultimately inseparable from the issues of violence, instability , and environmental deterioration.

D

Like experts have said, slower population growth will improve the standard of living of the people in less developed countries, indeed a positive factor in achieving development.

Rapid population growth has been suggested as worsening the ill effect of policy failure, while on the other end, slower population growth will allow more people to enjoy the given standard living.

For as long as the Filipino cannot take off economically, for as long as they remain enslaved by poverty because they remain weighed down by a monstrous population growth rate, the old cannot hope to give to the young the right to have a be endowed wit the dignity and worth of a human being, the right to have a wholesome family life, the right to a well-rounded development of their personality, the right to a balanced diet, adequate clothing, sufficient shelter, proper medical attention, and all the basic physical requirements of a healthy and vigorous life.

Neither can the old hope to give to the young the right to be brought up in an atmosphere of morality and rectitude for the enrichment of their character, the right to education commensurate with his abilities and to the development of his skills for the improvement of his capacity for service to himself and to his fellowmen, the right to opportunities for life and wholesome recreation and activities.

Neither can the old hope to give to the young the right to protection against exploitation, improper influences, hazard and other condition or circumstances prejudicial to his physical, mental, emotional, social and moral development.

Neither can the old hope to give to the young the right to live in a community and a society that an offer him an environment free from pernicious influences and conducive to the promotion of his health, the right to the care, assistance and protection of the state, the right to an efficient and honest government, and the right to group as a free individual, in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, tolerance, and universal brotherhood and with the determination to contribute his share in the building of a better Philippines and in the long run of a better world.

Without guaranteeing these rights to the young chunk of our population, there can be n hope for the future in this country. Having no hope, there is no point in efforts by any leader to have this country move forward and keep it on the same pace as the others who have, on their own merits and struggles, won for themselves a handsome per capita income.

True enough, crucial to our effort to achieve total development in the Philippines and the key that has great potential and achievable promise in the Filipino youth’s major role in building this country, is the reduction of population growth－ the center as it were of any successful strategy of development.

In fact, this has been found to be an excellent if not apt starting point for national economic development. Here the government must be helped by the youth sector, because if the government does not act immediately and decisively on the population issue, there will be no future to prepare for the Filipino people.

E

The Filipino youth can do much in this whole exercise.

Having experienced an erstwhile wimpy stance by the government on population control for many years, this problem must be grabbed by its horns to demonstrate government concern and a correct sense of priorities if it hopes to have the Philippines really on the same pace with the other newly industrialized countries of the region.

This should be the focus of the campaign that must be spearheaded by the Filipino youth－the youth,who must in the foreseeable future be the leader of this community, a community that is left with very limited resources that have not been properly taken care of by the youth’s elders, resources that have been indiscriminately damaged in an earlier time.

The Filipino can begin in their homes and the immediate environment where the Filipino family is closely knit as in other Asian societies.The campaign must rise from these areas where many couples still think the the larger the family size the better for the family at least economically. But that economic logic has been transformed into an outdated posture given the larger concern and realities of development in all its forms.

One also has to look more closely at the effective implementation of any population program. Having sown the seeds in the community where the family is the center of neighborhood block, the Filipino youth must now move out to the larger expanse of the population; the school and the church, for religion remains a vital force in the everyday life of the people.

The Filipino youth can act as guard in the implementation of government programs that pertain to national population policy. Here the youth can help monitor compliance and establish some kind of a feedback mechanism where follow through can be made to ensure those programs are not ignored, those programs are followed and that such programs do not destroy the sense of honor of the population.

For true enough , if population growth is allowed to continue in wild abandon whatever economic gains achieved by the country as it slowly marches forward, would be reduced to nothing, and reduced to nothing the country would collapse like a castle that had been carefully built, stone by stone, by those who intended to achieve security in the future.

That one－ the Filipino youth must now allow. For the Filipino youth knows his future, and must therefore help build the castle, rain or shine. For that castle is the Philippines, his only land.

Copyright © 2020

All Rights Reserved