Poor people have more children than rich people, isn't it strange?

Yes...the situation re population in the Philippines is beyond dire. As it stands, the country is incapable of providing adequate staple foods to the majority of the population. Rice is increasingly imported, fish - already too expensive for the poor to be a staple - will be very soon largely imported (if the Chinese and Japanese don't buy it all on market - in which case PI has no chance) at much higher prices, basic vegetables are being priced beyond the means of many. Meats are viewed as luxuries by the poor now and the situation is only worsening. Not good at all. The only solution is mandatory sterilization of men and women....I'm thinking at the age of 25 should help, although 21-22 would be better. They can continue to believe the Catholic Church knows best, or listen to their starving children.

Worse, while they scramble over each other's backs to leave for foreign jobs - the competition is picking up. Had it good for two decades but the zenith has passed. Seeing a lot more Chinese lately, and increasingly Thais, last couple years down here compared to Filipinos on 457 work visas. Suspect that is happening everywhere. Filipinos are valued for their language skills, but they are not doing as well lately with cheap labour from China picking up the attention and jobs. OFW's have saved the Philippines from collapse....but if that inflow of foreign capital starts heading south...they are on their own. Don't have much time to start fixing the problems - or the country will quickly flounder to an extremely impoverished level. Think Bangladesh...maybe ten to fifteen years away.

 

Why are so many of the forum members responding to this thread so adament in imposing (even forcefully, re. mandatory) Western ways of living, behaviour, attitude etc. on other people? Most of us westerners that come to Asia (and the Philippines in particular) are sometimes baffled by the attitude towards life of the locals, but that does not imply that there's an immediate need to initiate so-called corrective action! Take it as it comes or go back to the environment you obviously feel more comfortable in. Enough harm has been done by our ancestors (especially those in black frocks), so there's no need to add to that. I've been to the Philippines many. many times during the almost 25 years I've been married to my asawa, and we'll come back to stay by the end of this year (in Dumaguete, to be precise). During these visits I've encountered many locals and have been pleased and disgusted by them in the same manner and with the same gusto as I have been pleased and disgusted by westerners. Let the local people decide for themselves how they want to organise their lives, with a herd of children or with just a few. It's their choice, not ours. Funny though, even though they have barely nails to scratch their behinds, they're almost always smiling. I wonder why that is.......

Vicmico

 

... I assume your uncle wasn't your daddy either.

 

haha... and nowadays we recognize that too much inbreeding is not nesecarily to the benefit of the whole big family...

(no offense ment to anybody !!!)

 

I'm glad to hear you have been here many times as a tourist and find it so wonderful here.. wait till you live here for say 5 years and really find out how wonderful it is.. These people are turning "Their " country into a septic tank and don't ever criticize them for doing so as they are so proud to be Filipino and in charge of their own destiny.. I can hardly wait for you to live here and see how your wife handles this place,, bet you aren't even here a year before your wife wants to go home to the real world.. i hope that happens before your best friends come into your house with a gun at 3 in the morning and rob you... talk your way out of that .. in the famous words of Richard Shatner "Beam me up Scotty"O-|

 

Andi,

I hope you and I will meet before the end of this year so we can have a discussion about what you wrote over a nice, cold SMB. I have travelled the globe extensively and have lived in the Philippines for more than just a few days as a tourist on several occasions, both in urban as well as rural areas, so I'm not as ignorent as you might think. Main question that remains though: If you hate it so much, why are you still hanging around?? Power outage on the beaming machine??

Grtz,

Vicmico

 

William was the 1st to coin the phrase. Richard was in drag as Uhura.....joke lang