Anthony Perez is one of the founders and leading officers of Filipinos for Life. He penned the following essay for the "Definitely Filipino" website more than a year ago, but I've neglected to post it on this blog until now. Mea culpa. CAP.
From Definitely Filipino:
Anthony Perez
Yesterday I watched with dismay a video of politicians and known personalities being very vocal about their support for the RH bill. That quote made famous by Professor Charles Xavier came into my mind: “Man fears what he does not understand.”
Amidst this demagogue and clamor for the passage of this bill lies the silent truth: that everything in this bill is based on lies. I intend to shed some light on one particular lie – that the world is overpopulated.
To help us understand better what is at stake here, let us look at the facts.
The origin of the RH bill isn’t even local; it comes from foreign agencies that want to push their own agenda on developing countries like ours. In April of 1974, Henry Kissinger released the NSSM 200 or National Security Study Memo 200 which says that the population growth in the least developed countries or LDCs (the Philippines included) is a threat to the United States’ security and interests. Thus the study promoted population control measures like contraception and education towards the ‘contraceptive’ mentality. This ‘education’ also meant that everyone should be made to believe that the planet is getting more and more crowded and the resources are running out. I shall comment on this later on.
Overpopulation is a concoction of contraceptive pushers and abortion pushers who have banded together in a conglomerate called International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF). These are owners of multinational corporations which manufacture infant formulas, contraceptives, condoms, IUDs, sterilization and abortion gadgets like suction machines. They are the same people who control international money lending institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Frankfurt-based Development Loan Corporation and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
NSSM 200 says that the population of the world has increased dramatically from 1950′s onwards, an increase never before seen in human history. This is true, but it was not the result of too many babies… it was the result of better healthcare. More children live beyond their fifth birthdays and fewer women die in childbirth. Sadly, the population scaremongers made it look like the world’s population was expanding simply due to the number of children being born.
But is there enough food and resources to go around? The answer is yes. Food production has been on the rise despite the growing population, and this rise can be attributed to technology. We now have the technology to produce food enough to feed everyone. But why is there still hunger? Attribute that to graft and corruption. Attribute that to lack of opportunities and arable land in some places of the world. The rich countries, on the other hand, have more than enough food to spare. Better yet, they own the technology that enables them to produce food to sustain them.
It is easy to believe that as we grow in numbers, there wouldn’t be enough space and food to go around, and it sounds logical right? Along those lines is the belief that population growth is the primary reason for poverty.
The culprit behind this thinking was Robert Malthus, who said that as the population grows geometrically, production grows arithmetically, therefore resulting in poverty. However, almost 200 years later, Professor Simon Kuznets proved that Malthus was wrong, and said that economic growth is fastest during the time that the population growth was highest. This was validated in Europe during the 100 years industrialization of the European continent. For his efforts in disproving the fallacy, Kuznets was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1971.
And yet our lawmakers (read: lawbreakers) continue the education (read: idiotcation) and brainwashing of the masses that they with their 8 or 9 children are the reason behind the poverty of our country. They disregard facts and still cling to the fallacious Malthusian principle.
If we are so many, then why are we still poor?
The natural and expected result in the equation however did not happen in the Philippines, because purchasing power was removed from the population that grew. People could not buy because they had no money; and they had no money because they had no jobs or income earnings. The earnings that could easily have gone on to the people through industry were siphoned off by payments to a ballooning international and domestic debt, by tremendous tax cuts and tax holidays being given to foreign investments prejudicial to the internal economic growth of the country and most of all by the shameful and rampant corruption in the government. Instead of the people earning, it is the government official and a select few who were making all the money – and can afford to have a $20,000 dinner while the country is hungry.
Is the earth getting more and more crowded? According to basic calculations by area, all six billion people on the earth today would fit within the state of Texas, with each family having a house with a little yard. So, it is not a question of area. The problem is the growing concentration of large numbers of people in certain cities, caused by the deterioration and lack of opportunities in the rural areas.
Today, the world faces a demographic winter with an ageing population (which means the median age of a country is rising). Population control has its good and bad effects – on the good side, it will create a temporary economic bonanza. This is happening to Europe, Japan and Singapore. On the other hand, they have to face the music after that economic boom: with an ageing population that has bred so few children, the burden of having to pay for social security lies on the few, and there is also the question of manpower availability. Fact is that many of these European and Asian countries are now giving incentives to those who can bear 3 or more children. They have realized their folly a little too late.
Does this RH bill support abortion? Not directly. Of course if it blatantly said that the bill does support abortion, it would be shot down faster than you can say “women’s rights”. But it is an open secret that to offer reproductive health care in the name of women’s rights and more importantly, population control, means that abortion is a necessary option as well. Not convinced? Let’s take it directly from NSSM 200:
“No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion.” (http://www.population-security.org/28-APP2B.html#IV-B-1-a)
I can go on with this until this note reaches part nth. I will do whatever it takes to stop this bill from being passed and to honor life from conception. But I guess i would have to end it here, as I really do not want to bore you any further.
I was thinking of a particular quote to end this trilogy with a bang, but can’t think of any. In the end, I thought of quoting from the very first book of the bible, when God told man when He first created him, to “be fruitful and multiply.” It’s strange, but if overpopulation were true, God would have been been a very poor engineer not having the foresight that the world will become overpopulated one day. God gave us this command in order to RESPONSIBLY bear children that will be our joy and comfort when we grow old. Let us embrace life, my friends. It is good to be alive – let us share this with our children and our family.
P.S.
If the rest of the world is growing old, and with our migratory ways and low median age at 23, it isn’t far-fetched that the Filipinos will truly fill the earth and be great as a nation. This is our chance for greatness my friends!
