After emotions have sizzled down a bit from all the excitement about excommunication and Damaso, one sobers up to the proposed budget for family planning: P280 million for pills, P100 million for injectibles, and P8 million for condoms for a total of P400 million.
That’s a lot of taxpayers’ money for a cash-strapped third world country. From a taxpayer’s point of view, that money could be better spent somewhere else, like better security and defense. Why should one subsidize for those who have no knowledge of or access to family planning methods?
Why indeed. I posted the question in the FF Forum and got some very interesting answers:
Conversely, families can potentially put more resources into raising the kids they already have, ensuring a more secure future for them. This will eventually result in a better educated workforce that you can eventually hire, which equals more profits in the long run. – Twin-Skies
Total everything up, and you’ll probably end up with net savings… – Monk
Well, the reasoning sounds solid, at least to me. It would be interesting to hear from others why it isn’t. 🙂
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Thanks to Twin-Skies and Monk for the replies, and thanks to the FF Forum where people are ready and willing to give you honest answers and rational arguments as best they can. I would like to invite our readers to visit our online forum where freethinkers discuss various issues and topics ranging from the RH Bill to physics and cosmology to evolution to the existence of God. Debate, argue, or just lurk in the threads (which means you don’t even have to log in) and see how people try to sharpen their reasoning and learn to swallow their pride, all in the pursuit of truth.
http://filipino-freethinkers-22d5b3.ingress-earth.easywp.com/forum
Well we just got a 400 million USD loan from ADB
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/342270,ke…
Asian Development Bank to help keep Philippine kids in school
400 million PESOS is a good investment before these loans amount to billions of DOLLARS. Remember taxpayers, you're on the hook for the loan.
P400M is a miniscule amount.
Each human being consumes resources, requires upkeep not only on a personal and familial level, but also on a national level as well. From SSS, diapers, food, education "association dues" (to relate to condo speak). Preventing the births of a few hundred humans can easily save billions in the long run. Not just for the individual concerned, but for the family and the government as well.
I believe that sex education should be the focus of our attention. Keep the meddling Church away from it and pass a sound legislation that would make it a mandatory syllabus or a separate subject or course in the curriculum of our schools from grade school to high school and to be taught by professionals or experts trained on the subject.
In Estonia, it is the woman's responsibility and choice to use contraception or not, she decides whether to be pregnant or not. Most families there are small with one or two kids at least because of the high cost of raising and supporting a family. Couples particularly women are aware. I think the key here is the education of women. The RH bill, though it aims to provide "access" to contraception at the expense of taxpayers' money, will not prevent unwanted pregnancies from happening as long as there are uneducated and uninformed women–which is manifest of the government's failure when it attempts to provide public education and healthcare.
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