Abortion is illegal in the Philippines but a 2006 study found that there were about 473,000 a year, which accounts for about a third of women with unwanted pregnancies. – Blaine Harden of Washington Post

The biggest crime against the Filipino people and against humanity by the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Dispensation is not the disappearance (and presumed murder) of less-than 200 human-rights advocates or the killing of tens of journalists and broadcasters in her nearly eight years of rule. It is the tolerated killing of the unborn that exceed probably more-than half-a-million souls per year. If we go by this number, abortions in the Philippines have killed more-than four-million (4,000,000) fetuses and unborn babies in Mrs. Arroyo’s tenure as Philippine President. And she is a woman and she claims to be a practicing Catholic at that.

But then as this writer said, Why Not All Filipino Catholics Are Christians.

Speaking of the abnormally-high birthrates in the Philippines, the problem is that the government budget for population control is usually wasted because of outright corruption or waste resulting from bureaucratic inefficiency.

Government hospitals do not have the budget, the resources and the facilities to offer voluntary “tubal ligation” to women, vasectomy to men and family-planning seminars to couples.

Here are some of the articles about abortion that have been published in this website:

The Monumental Modern-day Filipino Holocaust

The Philippine Government Pays for the Killing of Fetuses and Abortion Is an Issue for 2010 Election

An Epilogue of the Article, A Pragmatic Look at the Present Political Crisis in the Philippines

February Is Not Only for EDSA Revolutions for Also It Is ProLife Month

President Arroyo’s Sadness Over Aborted Fetus Highlights Filipino “Holocaust”

Vatican Blesses the “Worldwide Moratorium on Abortion” Initiative

Advent and Abortion: A Christmas Message for George W. Bush and the American People

Catholic Bishops in the Philippines Condemn Local Abortion Ordinances

Here is the article written by Blaine Harden:

Birthrates Help Keep Filipinos in Poverty

By Blaine Harden

MANILA -- Maria Susana Espinoza wanted only two children. But it was not until after the birth of her fourth child in six years that she learned any details about birth control.

"I knew it existed, but I didn't know how it works," said Espinoza, who lives with her husband and children in a squatter's hut in a vast, stinking garbage dump by Manila Bay.

She and her family belong to the fastest-growing segment of the Philippine population: very poor people with large families. There are many reasons why this country is poor, including feudal patterns of land ownership and corrupt government. But there is a compelling link between family size and poverty. It increases in lock step with the number of children, as nutrition, health, education and job prospects all decline, government statistics and many studies show.

Birth and poverty rates here are among the highest in Asia. And the Philippines, where four out of five of the country's 91 million people are Roman Catholic, also stands out in Asia for its government's rejection of modern contraception as part of family planning.

In 1970, the population of Thailand and RP was about 36 million people (each) and growing at about 3 percent a year. But with an aggressive family planning program that provides the poor with free contraceptives, Thailand has since reduced its population growth rate to 0.9 percent. In the Philippines, the rate has declined sluggishly to about 2.1 percent. There are now about 26 million more people in the Philippines than in Thailand.

Acceding to Catholic doctrine, the government for the past five years has supported only what it calls "natural" family planning. No national government funds can be used to buy contraceptives for the poor, although anyone who can afford them is permitted to buy them. Local governments can also buy and distribute contraceptives, but many lack the money.

Distribution of donated contraceptives in the government's nationwide network of clinics ends this year, as does a contraception-commodities program paid for by the U.S. Agency for International Development. For years it has supplied most of the condoms, pills and intrauterine devices used by poor Filipinos.

"Family planning helps reduce poverty," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a 2003 speech that detailed her approach to birth control. But she said then and has since insisted that the government would support only family planning methods acceptable to the Catholic Church.

Women not wanting to get pregnant, Arroyo advised, should buy a thermometer and recording charts and abstain from sex when they are outside the "infertile phases of the monthly cycle."

Arroyo, 61 and a grandmother with three grown children, said in 2003 that when she was a young mother, she took birth control pills. She said that she later confessed to a priest.

Opposition From the Catholic Church

At the Manila garbage dump, Espinoza said she has been lucky.

A nongovernmental organization with health workers who regularly visit the dump told her that an intrauterine device could prevent her from having another baby. She plans to visit a clinic this month to get an IUD.

The organization that is helping Espinoza agreed to introduce this reporter to her on condition that it not be named. The group's health workers said they fear retaliation and harassment from officials in the national and city government, as well as from the Catholic Church. <<Snipped>>

To read the article in its entirety, please click on this hyperlink, Birthrates Help Keep Filipinos in Poverty

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