Just Like Rabbits

It was just fortunate for me to be invited by a friend to attend a razzmatazz sponsored by Pro-Life Philippines in St. Peter’s Parish in Fairview, Quezon City three years ago. I went there hoping to be enlightened about the issues on abortion, instead what I saw was an exciting and complex play intended to confuse (dazzle) the public.

I was surprised that the whole shebang was not even a dialogue but a propaganda-like rants run by the Roman Catholic church to stop the artificial birth control method and family planning. AY NAKU PO! Not again! There are even some foreign guess (I think from Canada) that talk about Philippine poverty must not be blamed on population growth. Now here we have aliens from another land who now in a mere instance know what is best for the Filipino society. MY PAPAYA!

Fortunately, I found some distributed literature which I seem to think of what this show is all about. The article seems to be a letter intended to be given to Philippine Congress and it is urging our respective Congressmen not to support any bills regarding:
• The Reproductive Health Bill
• Anti-Discrimination Act
• Integrated Population Management and Development Bill
• Divorce Bill
• Patients Rights Bill
• Anti-Terrorism Bill (?)
• Philippine Mining Act

Even the issues on Charter Change (?) Wait a minute there…I thought this is about the life of a child, why are we dancing the cha-cha in here?

Now since this is a “Pro-Life” issue, I will just tackle the issue concerning Pro-Life. I will leave the issue about the Anti-Terrorism and Philippine Mining Act in a more “political” atmosphere.

According to this article, they claim that the cause of poverty is not over population and the solution is not the use of contraceptives. Guess again? Well, for your information, overpopulation is one of the causes of poverty and these entertainers are just keeping a close eye on the issue. Some may set China as an example to justify overpopulation but let us examine the claim: We know that China is a very large country by territory compares to the itsy-bitsy group of islands called the Philippines so what is the problem? Even with a billion populations, China can still manage their resources and their per capital income, compare to the Philippines. So why go to China if we can talk about reality in our own backyard.

Now the clamor in the issue about the Reproductive Health Bill are not even realistic. Maybe if we are still living in the time of President Marcos, there is an issue, but today President Arroyo seems too hesitant to enforce the bill. Takot kasi si Ma’am sa simbahan eh.

The church “still” insists that the use of artificial contraceptive is immoral. Think about this, there are a million of sperm cells that leave a male body during coition. In those million sperm cells, only one is needed to fertilize the egg cell. Now do you consider it murder on what happened on the other unused sperm? It just does not make sense! Here, the Roman Catholics are into the sacredness of the sperm cell yet they do not care about the child. A little common sense can shed a light in this matter. Just observe families around you and you will notice that most families that well…a little well off have only 2 to 3 children, yet most families that live in depress areas have a factory of kids. Most family whose parents have some college education insist on having few children with an interval of birth between 3 to 5 years, whereas family who only have an educational attainment of grade school have children as much as a dozed whose birth intervals can be compared to a stairway – every year maroong birthday – WOAH!

What happened to these children? Well, maybe the staffs from Pro-Life Philippines should have a tour of Recto to Luneta at 1 to 4 AM and count the number of children sleeping in the streets, or sniffing rubber cement for dinner or breakfast. Now, I am just thinking, these Catholic priests and their cahoots (like Pro-Life Philippines) preach to their adherents that it is a blessing to have many children, but where are they when these children without the proper guidance of their parents, are now living in the streets, doing petty jobs just to survive or even the worst ending in crime? What is more moral to save your so-called sacred sperm or to spare a life on misery because of tradition, superstition and ignorance?

Now on another issue, according to Pro-Life Philippines you must not teach sex education to a 10 year old child. Hahaha! Now there is this speaker that says sex is God given and will just go on naturally. Maybe if you are still living in 18th century Europe, this is applicable. Before you talk, you have to consider the kind of environment you are living in. In our place, I hear 5 to 6 years old children cuss each other “P****g Ina Mo! P***i ng Nanay Mong Madaldal tinahi ko!”, “F**k You!” and wait….baka mapuno ko lang ng mga pangit na mura ang Filipino Freethinkers site. Just walk along the streets of Santa Cruz to Divisoria and you will be surprised how pornographic DVD,VCD are being sold in the streets like fishballs. AHA! Their packages are just lying there for the children to see. Pictures of a 12 year old child without any underpants being molested by a full-grown, pot bellied jerk old enough to be her daddy. Now what is more disgusting is to see this colored VCD label being held by a 7 year old grade school pupil from a near by elementary school. How about this, porno magazine that can rival Larry Flynn’s Hustler Magazine disguised as tabloids littered the streets of Manila. They only worth 15.00 pesos cheap and can be bought by the average Filipino school children.Let us not forget how pornography is now very easily downloaded from the Internet and those novelties, double-meaning songs and some raps music being played by the radio. – Like this song about a woman’s rump. Last and not the least, TV shows and movies that suggestively display men “beating their meat.”

So by not teaching your child about sex education, a craftier teacher is just waiting outside the gates of your house.

In a recent study conducted by the Asian Development Bank: Poverty in the Philippines: Income, Assets and Access, the main causes of poverty in the Philippines are:
• Weak macro-economics management
• High unemployment
• High population growth
• Weak agricultural production
• High corruption and weak governance
• Insurgency and violence
• Physical disability

Notice that high population growth is included in the list. A friend of mine once said, “Do you notice that most countries with a high Roman Catholic influence never seem progressed?” I sometimes wonder if population issue is one of the causes.

According to government statistics, three Filipinos are born every minute. That’s 160 Filipinos born every hour; 4,320 every day; 129,600 every month or 1,522,800 new Filipino to feed. Without proper care and guidance, more than a half of these new Filipino will like animals in the streets of our major cities. Another new batch of “blessed is the poor and the meek and the sinners, etc. etc. etc.”

Until today, the Roman Catholic stand is that the world is not overpopulated and that over population is not the cause of poverty. What do they know? Naturally, these “men of God” have always relied on fantasy. Reality is very hard to swallow. Just go to Quapo in Manila and see the number of street children that littered the pavement near the church gates. Children without clothes, whose bellies are bloated with parasites, beg passersby for money. These street children soon become teenagers, without the proper guidance of poor parents, becoming holdapers and pickpockets on Quiapo’s busy intersections. Is this what the Roman Church means by fixing the poverty problem? As the famed Filipino author, F. Sionil Jose said in an article in Business World in 1997:
The country’s massive problems, basically created by Marcos and irresponsible
elite would daunt any miracle worker. First, there is the tremendous population
growth – three percent annually, the highest in Asia; almost all the economic
gains are eaten up by it. Fueling it is the Catholic Church insisting on
doctrinal purity, opposing birth control programs.

Pro-Life Philippines are now telling the audience that the solution is more job and to produce more food for the masses. Wait a minute? More food or is it more mouth to feed, which is which? Just make a simple stroll in the streets of Manila and you can see children digging for left over in the garbage dumps, a site never heard off 20 years ago. Today the street of South Harbor in Manila is littered with families living in streets. Ano ba kayo? Nagbubulagbulagan ba kayo?
The equation is quite simple. Our planet is in a balance. Too many mouths to feed means an over use of natural resources. There is no magic here! For our resources to replenish, it will need time. Our population is too fast for our resources to catch up. Soon population will over run the resources. It’s that simple. Just take a good look on experiments concerning rabbit population problem in the United State and Australia. If the resources dwindle, nature will take its course. The situation is uglier to compare to the artificial birth control method when disease due to malnutrition would take its course to control the population.

If this will be the on going situation, instead of eternal salvation, the Roman Church will be responsible for the eternal starvation of the Filipino.