Plethora

Sen. Tito Sotto on UN’s population projection: “So what if we reach 10 billion, even 20 billion? They should not pretend to know more than God”

Published: Nov 2, 2011 - 12:46pm

Philstar.com reports that Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III criticized the Department of Health (DOH) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for drumming up the birth of a symbolic seven billionth baby in the world.

Apparently, Sotto believes that the DOH and UNFPA “just created media hype to give an impression that the world is already overpopulated in a bid to push for the passage of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill.” He referred to it as “another strategy by RH bill supporters to discourage the people from producing more babies as the world is already overcrowded now that the world’s population has reached seven billion.”

Sotto said: “That’s misleading. So what if we reach 10 billion, even 20 billion? They should not pretend to know more than God.”

Sotto went on to do his own “population math.” He pointed out that out of the 94.9 million population of the Philippines, about 313 people could be covered in every one square kilometer. So saying, Sotto is presumably highlighting the fact that the country is much better off when compared to, say, the tiny state of Singapore where 19,000 persons are living in every one square kilometer. The report did not say if Sotto was able to explain how this equation helps the Philippines.

For more on this story, log on to Philstar.com.