Wisdom from Guyito
By Antonio Montalvan II
Inquirer News Service

INQUIRER carabao mascot Guyito has unwittingly become this paper's sage on the population explosion myth. A creation of Inquirer cartoonist Jess Abrera in the lovable strip "A. Lipin," Abrera's Guyito has been running a conversation with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in what has become a virtual commentary on the fallacies of the population explosion debate. In effect, Guyito is saying that: population explosion is a myth; what is otherwise exploding is a profuse funding for contraceptions; Philippine poverty is not caused by overpopulation but by misgovernment. By churning out these series with a dash of humor in a comic frame setting, Guyito's pronouncements may well become the country's wisest proverbs that the masa can identify with without getting obfuscated by the technical rhetoric of the so-called population experts and anti-life advocates.

It will elate Guyito that there indeed are many readers who resonate very avidly with the population explosion myth. I have singled out some of the most eloquent opinions sent by readers of this column.

Reader Anna Cecilia C. Alejo of Sampaloc, Manila gives us a powerful estimation of some of these fallacies: "I cannot understand why our congressmen would push for something that has been disproved by scholars from developed economies. Aside from John Paul II's exposition on Evangelium Vitae which he elaborated with convincing clarity, questions and issues on the so-called 'overpopulation' have been answered and resolved by leading economists, among them Julian Simon, author of "Ultimate Resource," and Gary Becker, 1992 Nobel Prize winner and economics professor at the University of Chicago. In his article, "How to Defuse a Population Bomb," Becker couldn't have said it any better: 'An efficient remedy for this population divide would be for many men and women in countries with low incomes and growing populations to move to those with high incomes and stable or declining populations. The recent estimates from the United Nations show that developed regions absorbed about 20 million immigrants from poorer nations during the last decade of the twentieth century.'

"In the last 40 years, multilateral lending institutions and development organizations have spent $17 billion on controlling the populations of developing nations. They have little to show for it. I'm almost sure that the amount would have grown and given a huge return on investment if they had been poured into more 'productive' economic activities. Four decades is a long time; this would have been more than sufficient for that amount to triple had it been invested in technology and human resource development. Simon had been right all along: Malthus did not know there will be great inventions in this day and age.

"Becker seconded this formula, saying: 'The problems would be greatly reduced if poorer nations promoted greater economic growth through encouraging entrepreneurship and through greater investments in human and physical capital, for birthrates invariably fall rapidly when countries have faster economic growth and expanding education, especially for women.'"

From reader Charles L. Jonas, these revealing data: "The sex education provisions (of the proposed House Bill 3773) are particularly misleading. Since the advent of public school sex education in America, rates of teen pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases have skyrocketed. Even data from Planned Parenthood, the major proponent of artificial contraception in America, shows an increase in teen pregnancy and abortion for those who enroll in their clinics, rather than a decrease as they intend to produce.

"Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family explains it best. Coed sex education, he says, breaks down the natural barriers that help preserve virginity and makes casual sexual experimentation more likely to occur. It also strips kids, especially girls, of their modesty to have every detail of anatomy, intercourse and condom use made explicit in coed situations. Whereas it was a weighty decision to give up one's virginity in decades past, it is but a small step for those whose conditioning began in the classroom.

"Moreover, those who are pushing for this bill are not revealing their full agenda. Although they might publicly talk of sex education being values-free biological information, their private conversation is quite different. In fact, one of the biggest such groups in the States has recently come out in the open, admitting what others have suspected all along. Theirs is an agenda that flies in the face of all known Christian morality and is meant to promote total sexual license for all individuals regardless of age, marital status or sexual orientation. (They even want explicit sex education to start at age 5!)."

Finally, from Cynthia B. Tamoria of Makati City comes this personal testimony of poverty and faith: "The poverty that is hovering over us is not due to overpopulation and the solution to poverty is population control. I myself came from a very poor family of seven siblings. Although it was so difficult raising a large family, my parents did not resort to artificial contraception, out of love and fear of God. Because of sheer determination and with the grace of God, my parents, a jeepney driver and a dressmaker, were able to send us through college. Now, we are relatively living comfortably, and are productive citizens of our society. So, we should not treat or view each newborn as 'a mouth to feed' but 'a pair of hands to work."

What a shame that it is a comic strip mascot who is clearly showing us the light of day! Thank you, Jess Abrera.

Comments to monta@cu-cdo.edu.ph