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SCMP Reporter

DRIVE from the financial spires of Makati towards Bayside Roxas Boulevard and you pass through some of the most depressing shanties in Manila. As the five-star hotels disappear, you go past shacks and slums along potholed streets.

   Stuck in a traffic jam recently, I looked out the window of the air-conditioned taxi and observed some of the young generation of the Republic of the Philippines. There were four boys, aged between about eight and 11.

   They were dressed in ragged shorts and tattered T-shirts. One had open, running sores on his legs. No school for these youngsters. No doctors. No playground. No homes. No loving parents.

   These are some of the growing hordes of unwanted, uncared for children throughout the Philippines. They are born because of the lack of birth control in their lovely but impoverished country.

   These are the spiritual offspring of Cardinal Jaime Sin, staunch defender of the faith who stands like King Canute in front of the rising tide of population which is drowning his nation in sorrow and want.

   From his plush palace, the leading Catholic official in Asia decrees that all attempts to promote effective family planning are an affront to the teachings of the church.

   Deeply religious, Filipinos pay heed. The result is millions of babies for whom the nation cannot adequately care.

   Is the Cardinal, I wonder, proud of this achievement? Does he, as he is chauffeured in his limousine through the tawdry streets of Manila, look as I did out the window of his vehicle and ponder the fate of the children of the streets?    I hesitate to criticise the deeply-held religious beliefs of others. People should be free to believe and practise what they choose. Although I might find the ancient teachings of some faiths absurd, that's none of my business. I hold fiercely and firmly that people can worship who or what they please, any way they wish. However, when the results of those beliefs impinge on others, I feel they become topics open to general debate.

   So it is with the generation I call Cardinal Sin's children. The portly prelate has for at least two decades stood resolutely against the slightest relaxation of the ban on modern birth control.

   It's ludicrous; how can a semi-literate peasant couple down on a sugar farm in the Visayan islands be expected to practise restraint and the rhythm method? These are the only options open to them of which the church approves.

   Even sophisticated Westerners have difficulty in taking the wife's temperatures, keeping an eye on the calendar and deciding when it is safe for them to make love. Romantic, it ain't. It's not efficient or foolproof, either. Does the church provide thermometers to the impoverished millions whom it expects to follow this complex discipline?    The effects of church teaching and resultant poverty can be seen throughout the nation.

  GO to the sugar islands of Samar or Negros. Watch the weeping couples carrying white coffins the size of shoeboxes from their wretched shacks to impressive churches and then to nearby cemeteries where babies who never had a chance are laid to rest, blessed by the local priest.

   Go to any village in Luzon. Scores of half-naked, smiling children run from leafy side roads to catch a glimpse of the foreigner. They are delightful, but you ask yourself how they will grow up. Their prospects are bleak, indeed. Education is scanty; meaningful career prospects are dismal, and there is little hope of a decent job.

   They eke out a living on the fertile land, marry early, seek the only solace that is available - sex - and in turn swiftly produce yet another brood of children for whom there is no hope, no work, no future except yet another circle of this mediaeval existence.

   In 1965, the Republic of the Philippines had 31 million people. Today, it has 65 million. The population is increasing at the rate of 2.5 per cent annually, one of the highest rates on earth; theoretically, in 30 years the country could have 150 million people.

   When they die of mass starvation, presumably Cardinal Sin guarantees them entry to a better existence.

   The nation has, in President Fidel Ramos, a decent, sober, honest and effective president, which is a welcome change. Mr Ramos is a Protestant. He is also a brave man. He has advocated family planning, suggesting methods that are modest compared to most countries.

   Contrast the offspring of Cardinal Sin's philosophy with the children of China. In a score of trips to every part of China over the past couple of years, I have marvelled constantly at the way children are treated. They are loved, cherished, well fed and clothed, have good medical treatment, can look forward to an education in a society which - for all its faults - is constantly getting richer.

   The family planning drive is one of the great victories of the rulers in Beijing. Keeping down the birthrate since 1972 with tough policies has allowed the nation to progress. Without it, China today would have at least 1.4 billion people instead of 1.14 billion.

   That restrictive policy has had some appalling by-products, the most sickening of which is the infanticide of millions of baby girls in backward rural areas. The government is striving with enormous efforts to educate the peasants; there are increasing signs it is succeeding.

   China grows daily more wealthy and advanced. The Philippines threatens to sink under the weight of its unemployed, poor people for whom possibly the best prospect in life is a job as a domestic servant in Hong Kong. There is a stark lesson here. But don't expect Cardinal Sin to learn from it.



A cardinal's children