RH bill bad for the economy — Wall Street Journal

25 July 2012, 9:15 p.m. – THE WALL Street Journal has warned against the Aquino administration’s apparent endorsement of the “reproductive health” (RH) bill, saying economic growth could be stymied by messing with the Philippines’ demographic profile.

In a July 24 opinion piece, the American business publication said population control was not the solution to the Philippines’ economic woes, but policies promoting growth.

“The Philippines doesn’t have too many people, it has too few pro-growth policies,” said the Wall Street Journal in the piece titled “Keeping the Philippine Dream Alive: Investors see the first hints of pro-growth reform momentum.”

The Journal commended President Benigno Aquino III for economic gains in the past two years and for pushing reforms, but said “his promotion of a ‘reproductive health’ bill is jarring.”

By tinkering with demographics, the Philippines could go the way of countries like China whose growth is seen as no longer sustainable because of a shrinking productive population, it said.

The RH bill will “put the Philippines in danger of following China’s path into middle-income development followed by a demographic trap of too few workers,” the Journal said.

In his State of the Nation Address last Monday, Aquino said “responsible parenthood” could be a solution to the lack of classrooms, which RH lobbyists took as a cue for renewing pressure on Congress to pass the controversial contraceptive welfare bill.

The RH bill, which is backed by foreign-funded pro-abortion groups, aims to channel billions of pesos in state funds to a massive birth-control program. It prescribes two children as “ideal.” Gervie Kay S. Estella