BY JULIA CARREON-LAGOC
A SMALL cry breaks forth from little Juan or little Juana. More endearingly, call the baby Juanito or Juanita. However you name the newly-born, it becomes one statistic added to the overall exploding Philippine population.
Welcome little one! Ours is the God-given mandate to feed, clothe, and shelter you — the three basic needs of a human being. Further are two more basic needs: medical assistance and education, both imperative for you to enjoy in the great family of humankind.
How well can we provide the aforementioned? Ask the government. Ask the new administration. What can we do, we in our comfort zones?
To hold back the teeming population, I, among many other advocates, stand on the use of contraceptives. Unlike abortion, contraceptives do not kill. As the name suggests, they only prevent conceptions. Abortion I favor only when continued pregnancy will endanger the life of the mother. What about you?
Reprinting hereunder my column that was adjudged Runner-up for Best in Opinion Writing – Print Category in the 2007 Population Development Media Awards sponsored by the Philippine Legislature Commission — one more shot in the advocacy to curb population growth:
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A BRIGHTER DAY FOR LITTLE JANE
Ashland, Oregon, USA, July 8 — The Pinoy retirees (that’s Rudy and me) were restfully seated on the concrete bench around a tree that gave ample shade. One of those moments when all you do is take in the passing show of humanity after limbs begin to tire out and shoulders start to hang down. Especially after we’ve checked out Ashland’s malls before the evening show of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, one of the plays scheduled for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
A motley crowd of passersby provided an interesting diversion. A “Hi!” to acknowledge another human being’s existence, a nod to one looking like a fellow tourist, a smile thrown here and there to show humanity’s brotherhood (and sisterhood) — a sight relaxing enough until we heard a young mother telling off a bawling child: “We are not going to buy anything.”
She looked twenty, take or add a year or two, verily on the third stage in the Seven Ages of Man that Shakespeare expounds in, “As You Like It”. That age when the love-struck seeks fulfillment as must have been the case in this girl. She was pushing a stroller — in it a baby, her second child I suppose — while the other child kept on tugging to her skirt. She wheeled the stroller inside Small Change that carried an additional name below it: Children’s Store. It was right in front where the hubby and I were resting. Customers came in, usually with lots of kid stuff on their way out. Would the young mother buy something for the kid? I wondered, thinking of her off-hand admonition: “We are not going to buy anything.” Rudy and I stood up to leave, annoyed by the frustration and deprivation of children.
Not yet twenty or even twenty-three and already burdened with two kids. Sigh! How many of her kind exist in the Philippines? in other underdeveloped countries? or right here in highly-developed U.S. of A.? How unfortunate to hear of a child-mother rocking a baby in India or in the remote and not-so-remote areas of Bayan Ko. Just passed puberty and already a mother. Indeed unfortunate, deplorable, appalling. Let me be redundant in forcing the issue against teen marriage and irresponsible parenthood.
The “60 Minutes” newscast last night bemoaned the fact that 78 million Americans do not have health insurance. I can just picture how much more pitiful is the situation in my home country. The teeming masses depend on puericulture centers existing on scant supply of medicines and inadequate facilities. One more compelling reason for POPCOM (Population Commission) to rein in the exploding population.
Among its many objectives geared to keeping our population growth down, POPCOM must espouse late marriage and late child-bearing age. DELAY MARRIAGE UNTIL AGE 30. The catchphrase, if observed, will considerably reduce the child-bearing period. At least for the many who uphold the sanctity of marriage.
DON’T BE A BABY FACTORY would serve just right for those having them cheaper by the dozen. My friend, Dr. Doris Bagarinao, says, we need to provide lots of opportunities for women (work, study, travel, career). “We need to stop feeding young women fancy beauty fare, romance, and Prince Charming fantasy, and feed them instead lots of information about reproduction, careers, women’s rights… Women should learn to insist on control over their bodies, their lives, and their futures.” I say Amen to all that.
Come to think of it, the TV is deluged with Clinique, Victoria’s Secret, Estee Lauder cosmetics and a cornucopia of other beauty aids for both men and women, but I still have to see a favorite brand of contraceptive being promoted. Or condom, the kind most convenient, most durable, most pleasurable, whatever. Or other commercials pushing for artificial birth control. Because, more than ever, with the exploding population, birth control is the need of the hour.
I’m still wondering whether the little girl who went inside the children’s store with her mother got something to make her day brighter. “We are not going to buy anything.” A statement of utter denial that still rings in my ears. How it must have broken the heart of little Jane (the name I gave because the craving, teary-eyed little one is every-child deprived of the good stuff in a child’s life.)
Little Jane deserves a brighter day just as every little Juana, Maria, or Ana deserves a brighter day — born into a world prepared to feed, clothe, and shelter them, and sustain them with the joys of childhood. (juliaclagoc@yahoo.com)/PN
