ALFI Forum on the Filipino Family

ALFI-Youth young ladies attended the ALFI Forum on the Filipino Family last November 20, 2004 at the Daughters of the Virgin Mary Immaculate (DVMI) Auditorium in Alabang. Guest speakers called on our country’s legislators to discontinue their attempts in imposing government intervention to reduce population growth.

The forum’s speakers cited statistics from the United Nations (UN) showing that the country’s fertility rate (TFR) will drop to near-replacement levels within the next decade.Under UN projections, while today’s TFR is 2.93, or about 3 births per woman, by 2010-2015, the Philippines’ TFR is projected to be 2.05. To replace a country’s population, the TFR should be at 2.1 births per woman.

Guest speakers Jose Sandejas, Trustee of the Asia Pacific Demographic Foundation and Manny Arejola, Director of the Kalipunan ng Mga Kapatiran ng Pamilyang Pilipino, raised the alarm that if our legislators push population control bills now pending in Congress, the country’s decreasing birth rate could cause a worrisome burden on the next generation of Filipinos. They cited the experience in two-thirds of all countries worldwide that are now facing demographic collapse, owing to fertility rates below 2.0. Countries that are about to shrink include Italy, Spain, Eastern Europe and China, while Germany and Japan are in fact shrinking. This problem didn’t occur overnight, but was caused by population control policies set up 30 years ago. In Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea, society’s reluctance to propagate has forced governments to resort to financial incentives for childbirth, without much success.

Arejola also said that fears of a population crisis are being sown through misinformation and erroneous data so that people will eventually accept fertility control, homosexual unions, euthanasia, divorce, sex education devoid of values, and abortion. Both speakers said that the presence of slum areas in Metro Manila brings about the misconception of a population problem, rather than lack of employment opportunities in the countryside and the resultant urban migration. They warned that the erosion of values cannot be reversed once government supports the agenda of anti-population advocates.

ALFI’s third guest Dr. Patricia Alvia, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Makati Medical Center, Asian Hospital, and Medical City, explained the adverse consequences of artificial contraceptives, not only on the woman using them, but also on the viability of her unborn child. Dr. Alvia stressed that since life begins at conception, all contraceptives and birth-control methods including the IUD, the pill, and injectables have an abortifacient effect because they make the uterus hostile to life. She said recent studies also show a strong link between the pill and breast cancer.