Update on population explosion

By Herbert Vego

HOW many Filipinos are there in the Philippines today?

It is a question that has different answers from different sources. But if we base it on the 2024 Philippine census by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the national population in that year was 112,729,484, making our country the 14^th most populated nation on earth — terrible in what appears to be a dot in the world map.

it means an increase of 3,694,141 over our 2020 population.

Based on the PSA projection, by now we must have exceeded 117 million.

Fifteen years ago in 2010, we were only 92.3 million.

The urgency of population control gave birth to the Reproductive Health Law of 2012 (RA 10354), which provides universal access to information, services, and products for reproductive health and family planning.

In a previous column, this writer raised the alarm of population congestion as a direct cause of poverty, which has already forced millions of Filipino laborers to seek greener pastures abroad.

This time I would like to focus on overpopulation as a direct cause of the pollution problem besetting the urban centers.  One example is the Manila Bay, from where thousands of tons of garbage have been extracted.

Another is the long and winding Pasig River that cuts through Metro Manila. Anybody who has been there has seen the murky, almost stagnant water; and has breathed the foulest air around.

As late as the second half of the 1960s, the waters of Manila Bay were still fit for swimming.

Ironically, the Pasig River may also be cited as proof that lower population density augured well for pollution-free environment. Was there really a time when Pasig River was a natural health spa?

Yes, according to one of my prized possessions — the English translation of an 1853 French book, Adventures of a Frenchman in the Philippines by Paul P. de la Gironiere. A chapter in the book cites Pasig River as a health-rejuvenating body of water where the rich Spanish, English, Chinese and various mestizos paraded on boats and gondolas.

The author wrote: “The newest and most elegant houses are built upon the banks of the river Pasig. Each house has a landing place from the river and little bamboo palaces serving as bathing houses to which the residents resort several times daily to relieve the fatigue caused by intense heat.”

We can only see the same clean bodies of water today in sparsely populated rural riverbanks.

By the way, the once murky Iloilo River in Iloilo City today has been transformed into a fishing opportunity for anglers. The esplanade alongside is now a major leisure and tourism hub where people jog, walk, and enjoy the view. Thanks to former Mayor Jerry Treñas for his initiative, and to his daughter Raisa, the new mayor, for continuity of upkeep.

In the same book, the French author detailed the per-province population as revealed by the 1833 census. Of the total Philippine population of only 3,345,790, what is now Metro Manila had the highest with 285,039. The provinces of Iloilo, Capiz (including what is now Aklan) and Antique had 232,055; 115,440; and 78,250, respectively.

I was 10 years old and in grade four in 1960 when I first learned that the Philippines had a population of 30 only million. This means that, between 1960 and today, the population that took centuries to accumulate has almost quadrupled.

God help us survive the bigger population to come!

-oOo-

WILL GARIN’S MORE POWER EXPANSION BILL PASS?

THERE is a good chance that the House Committee on Legislative Franchises will unanimously approve House Bill No. 6292, which seeks to expand the franchise area of Iloilo City’s MORE Electric and Power Corporation (MORE Power) to Iloilo’s First District.

Filed by First District Representative Janette L. Garin, it proposes to allow MORE Power to serve the municipalities of her district, currently under Iloilo Electric Cooperative I (ILECO I).

The proposed law would pit MORE Power and ILECO I in competition.

So far, only one member of the ILECO I board of directors – Atty. Salvador Cabaluna — has publicly opposed the bill, which can be interpreted to mean that the co-op is already ready to engage in a neck-and-neck battle for 1^st District households, which thin the number of its more than 160,000 customers.

This writer intends to write more on this based on views coming from various stakeholders.