Family planning program in the workplace, stabilizing population growth, stable economy

3 June 2005

Ms. Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service

Dear Ms. Rina,

I am very happy to know, through your article ("Business folk and macho men", PDI, June 3, 2005, p.A15), that the business forum organized by The Forum for Family Planning and Development Inc. (FFPD) was poorly attended. I really laughed when I read that "over 30 confirmation" were received out of "over a hundred" invited. You did not mention how many actually attended. I bet it was less than 30.

I congratulate the invited businessmen who did NOT attend. They are really very smart (no wonder they are businessmen). It only takes a business mind of a "balut vendor" to realize that FFPD's brand of family planning program (which is synonymous to population and birth control) is not good for business. No wonder the businessmen did not attend.

Brainwashing the workforce into thinking that separating the sexual act from its reproductive function is good for their personal lives will develop in them a contraceptive mentality. This mentality, which is easily perpetuated from generation to generation, will result in a long-term, irreversible, negative population growth. With a declining population, how can a businessman project an increasing customer base? This is already occuring in developed countries. Some already see a serious problem looming in pension and other social security issues. Certainly, population control is bad for business.

Establishing a "stable economy" does not require "stabilizing population growth". Manipulating the population is not as simple as driving a car. In the population issue, one is dealing with families, human beings! Every family should be respected in their free decision on how big their family they want it to be. It is their basic human right. No one, even the employers, can coerce them. The population is not a mechanistic reality. A "stable economy" is attained by implementing sound government policies that stimulate the "real factors in development: enterprise, creativity, and risk" (William McGurn, 1996). As William McGurn (1996) contend "there is no fixed level of resources, no natural capacity, no predefined limit to what people might do if given the opportunity to exercise the real factors in development".

Creating a "larger consumer base with higher purchasing power" is not equivalent to a lower population growth. Wealth is not automatically redistributed fairly by just achieving a lower national fertility rate. If the government does not craft policies that would lower the gap between the poor and the rich, that vision will still be unattainable even if we lower our population. What is crucial are the government economic policies not the size of the population!

The UP Economics professors were only looking, in their study, at short-term effects ("time and productivity lost to pregnancy, maternity and paternity leaves, etc") of a growing population. They based their arguments on the premise that workers are just individual productive units. Should they not consider also the "family", the basic social unit, which is an undeniable reality in society? Should they not consider the workers as members of families whom they have to nurture and support? Moreover, employers have also to take into account their responsibility to society. And that involves the family, too!

I hope you appreciate and respect the point of view of this feedback. Thank you and more power to you.