Reproductive health bill will usher in a demographic winter!

One of the first acts of newly inaugurated US President Barack Obama was to reverse the anti-abortion policy of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, sending pro-life advocates into panic mode. In fairness to President Obama, he has always made it known that he was pro-choice. So now that he is in the White House, we’d like to know if he would abort a coming child because he would be too busy as President to tackle another child in the family.

Meanwhile, just a few days after President Obama restored the abortion ruling, CNN reported this week that the electronics giant Canon was allowing its employees to leave early at least twice a week with the unusual request to make more babies. With business in a downturn, the Japanese electronics manufacturer figured that they might as well help Japan’s other problem that is potentially bigger than the recession they are in today. That’s the dwindling birth rate, which is pegged by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare at 1.34, far below the 2.0 needed to maintain Japan’s population.

We’ve already written it here before that Japan’s population is aging faster than anywhere else in the world. Now the Keidanren, Japan’s largest business group with 1,300 international corporations, is asking its members to let workers go home early to help in the population growth. What’s happening in Japan is called a “demographic winter.”

Let me say it here, when we pass the RH bill, the Philippines will be on the straight road to a population decline that would be unstoppable. So should Congress bring this nation to a demographic winter? Remember, when this happens to our country, it’s a point of no return. Just look at what’s happening in Japan! I hope someone will educate our congressmen about demographic winter, then no one will support the RH bill!

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A congressional panel has apparently approved a P11.3-billion automation fund for the 2010 presidential elections. When this money will be enacted into law and released is something we should all hope would happen very soon. My other hope is that this money wouldn’t be “snatched” away by the corrupt hands of unscrupulous government officials. If there is anything this nation badly needs, it’s holding a truly free and honest elections so that the true will of the electorate and not the will of the elected will surface so we can say that democracy is alive and well in the Philippines!

Another positive move by Congress is the order by Speaker Prospero Nograles for a full-blown investigation into the bankruptcy of the rural banks belonging to the Legacy Group and the pre-need companies. Supposedly, the Senate promised this, but unfortunately our senators just forgot about it. Perhaps they’ve concentrated only on big-ticket items.

Aside from exposing the bad business practices of the Legacy Group, we need to find out why the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) failed to warn depositors that those banks were no longer stable. We’ve already written much about rural banks and we’re hitting only a stern silence from the BSP. But others have come out. Here’s another letter e-mailed to me in response to our article on rural banks last Monday:

“Dear Bobit, I pray that this will see print soon. We borrowed from this rural bank in Dagupan, Pangasinan to finance the construction of a 17-unit condo building in downtown Baguio. Too late we found out later that rural banks can just get away with about everything, including parallel economy within the bank, like the one that Mr. Resado is talking about: high interest rates, cash and check deposits payable to the bank going to the account of its then president.

“They issue ORs without BIR authorization, evading paying taxes and nobody’s the wiser; they hide under the cloak of legitimacy. After all rural banks are under the supervision of the BSP. Oh, but yes, this anomalous practice was reported to the BSP which investigated it and in the end it said nothing and rewarded the bank with more branches all over Pangasinan.

“Despite an ongoing litigation for a credible accounting because, Sir, we are fully paid on the loan, the rural bank took over the property last Jan. 23, complete with burly PNP men terrorizing the occupants, mostly students who are minors, who were coerced into signing something they didn’t probably understand. If you have a fax number, we can fax the attachment letter. Thank you very much.”

Again, the letter writer asked not to be identified. Is this what’s happening in our country where people who loan money from banks and pay them, still get foreclosed and armed men are used to implement the foreclosure? What is happening to this country?

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.