A Debate Between Quirky Catholic and A Population Control Fanatic

First of all, let me set the record straight: this is more of a discussion rather than an all-out slug fest, and I would not call this a proper debate. However, I think you would like to know one thing about population control pushers, like the one I had a discussion with. They claim to use science and reason to push their agenda, but when it comes down to it... I will let you decide.

Just a brief background. I was tagged in a thread in a certain page. Lo and behold, I see our old friend, Antiqueno Pinoy, peddling his wares again, so to speak. He and I, along with several of my companions, have been debating him since 2010 during the early days of the I Oppose the RH bill page. I sort of lost track of him after the bill passed late last year, and I was a bit surprised to see him on another page. He is a rabid population control believer, and he insists that unless our country goes down to a TFR (total fertility rate) of 1.0, then this country is doomed. In essence, he wants to copy China's one-child policy, even as China has already turned its back on it. The reversal may have come too late, as you guys can read here, but let's save that for another day. Without further ado, I present to you Mr. Population Control Fanatic.

Knowing Mr. Population Control Fanatic all too well, exchanging facts, numbers, statistics, and studies with him in an effort to prove his Malthusian ideas wrong is as futile as Sisyphus rolling up his fabled boulder up the hill. It's like dousing water to Greek Fire - he will not accept any logical or scientific proof that will debunk his population control philosophy. So I took a different route, as you can read above and below. 

Hah! He refuses to answer such an easy question: do you have kids of your own, Mr. Antiqueno? He might as well tie a millstone to his neck and drop to the bottom of the sea if he were to follow my line of arguing, and so he deflects it and refuses to answer my simple question.

See how he tried to duck and weave by saying that my question was 'personal and emotional'. Following his statement of "high fertility(too many babies) causes poverty, the logical conclusion would be that his kids caused poverty too. If he didn't have any, he might as well just have none, lest he and his siring of children exacerbate the poverty we have here in the country.

For the record: Yes, his statement - high fertility rate is the major cause of poverty in the Philippines - is wrong. Many countries have already felt the effects of having too few babies born that would have been the future manpower and labor force of their nation. They have mitigated this by asking for immigrants, like us, to work and live there in their country. Countries like Japan, Singapore, China, Russia, Germany, Italy, Canada, France, and Spain have TFRs below 2.1 - meaning that their ladies are having less than 2 kids. Demographically speaking, countries whose TFRs are below the so-called "replacement rate" of 2.1 are the countries having trouble with too many elderly people and too few young people. In Japan, for example, sales of adult diapers are way higher than that of baby diapers.

This kind of mentality - that too many people cause poverty - is a theory developed by Thomas Malthus in the 19th century, and has been long debunked by Simon Kuznets, a Russian-American economist, statistician, demographer, and economic historian who won the 1971 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences "for his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth which has led to new and deepened insight into the economic and social structure and process of development". Here in Asia, scientists Wong Hock Tsen and Fumitaka Furuoka made a study called: The Relationship between Population and Economic Growth in Asian Economies. Their studies concluded that overall, there was no relationship between economics and population growth - debunking what Antiqueno Pinoy said above that very high fertility causes poverty; however, they also concluded that for some countries, namely: Singapore, China, and The Philippines, population growth actually causes economic growth, debunking Antiqueno a second time. 

It is one thing to debunk Antiqueno's claims; however, too many people, many of them RH supporters, still believe in the antiquated and long-debunked Malthusian idea of too many people causing poverty. In fact, this is also the belief of so many ecologists - that too many people cause the destruction of nature, ergo we should diminish the population for the sake of the trees, the animals, the rivers, and the forests. Bullsh*t! That's why I don't adhere to animal groups like PETA either. They place animals' rights before human rights. You don't see too many of animal rights groups fighting abortion and contraception, right? 

In the end, the debate was not meant to be. I was tired of arguing stats and demography with him, and he wouldn't answer my question either. But, I learned something very valuable with my exchange with him. When it all comes down to it, when we're dealing with flesh and blood, science can only prove so much. Beyond the numbers, beyond the statistics, beyond the ideologies, there are people like you and me, happy and grateful to be alive. Who among us, then, have caused poverty in the country? We're working, we're paying taxes, we're contributing to a better nation, and so will our children. 

My life is a gift from God. We are all God's gifts to one another. This way we enrich the world with our lives. This is my belief. This is why I cannot accept Mr. Antiqueno's belief that people cause poverty and misery, precisely because people are also the way out of it.