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bjbjLULU JEFFREY BROWN: And now to the Philippines, a country struggling to cope with its rapidly
growing population. Tonight's story is part of a new project that looks at the challenge
of feeding the world in a time of social and environmental change. It's a NewsHour partnership
with the Center for Investigative Reporting, Homelands Productions and American Public
Media's "Marketplace." The project is called Food for 9 Billion. The reporter for tonight's
story is Sam Eaton of Homelands Productions. SAM EATON, Homelands Productions: The Danajon
double barrier reef off of Bohol Island in the southern Philippines is one of the richest
marine biodiversity hot spots had the world. But just a short boat ride away, more than
a million people depend on these fishing grounds for their food and livelihoods. Rice may be
the staple food of the Philippines, but fish provide most of the protein and daily diet.
And as the population of communities like this one soar, nearly tripling in the last
three decades, the effect on the reef has been devastating. Fishermen are resorting
to extreme tactics to boost their declining catch. NAZARIO AVENIDO, patrol volunteer:
We capture one boat this morning. SAM EATON: Nazario Avenido and his group of volunteers
operate 24-hour patrols, trying to protect their local fishing grounds. Illegal fishing
has become rampant. Many use dynamite or cyanide, indiscriminately killing everything within
their reach. Avenido has confiscated more than 50 boats and hundreds of illegal nets
in recent years. Today, he seized this boat. Its owner, who escaped capture, was using
a banned net that wreaks havoc on spawning grounds and sensitive corals. Avenido says
the violators aren't bad people. They're just hungry. NAZARIO AVENIDO: Because there is
no other solution, especially when they are a very poor family. SAM EATON: Poor in a country
that has one of the highest population growth rates in all of Southeast Asia, every year
adding about two million more mouths to feed. WALDEN BELLO, Philippines: It's a hell of
a problem. I think you just need to look at the statistics. SAM EATON: Congressman Walden
Bello says the Philippines is already beyond its carrying capacity. And that's today, with
a population just shy of 100 million people. WALDEN BELLO: And so the demographers are
really worried because they feel that, most likely, at the earliest, we'll be stabilizing
at around 200 million in 2080. SAM EATON: That eventual doubling of the population presents
an existential threat to the Philippines, especially for the people who depend on its
natural resources for food. I traveled to a rural fishing village called Humayhumay
to see how the issues of population growth, food and the environments are connected. And
what I found was surprising. Jason Bostero and his wife, Crisna, both grew up in large
families typical of this area. But unlike the generations before them, the Bosteros
made a deliberate choice to have only two children: James and Cyril Jean, ages 6 and
9. JASON BOSTERO, Philippines (through translator): My income is just right to feed us three times
a day. It's really, really different when you have a small family. SAM EATON: That choice
to have a smaller family was motivated by memories of going hungry as young children.
CRISNA BOSTERO, Philippines (through translator): In my case, we were really hard-up before.
Sometimes, we would only eat once a day because we were so poor. We couldn't go to school.
I did not finish school because there were just so many of us. SAM EATON: The reason
the Bosteros were able to have a smaller family is because they could choose to. A community-based
family planning program has made birth control options like the pill accessible and affordable
at about 70 cents a month for the first time in their village. DR. JOAN CASTRO, PATH Foundation
Philippines: In villages, we train and identify community-based distributors like this to
be able to sell pills and condoms any time. SAM EATON: Dr. Joan Castro started the program
here. DR. JOAN CASTRO: And this becomes as easy as buying soft drinks or matches. SAM
EATON: She's with the PATH Foundation Philippines, a group funded mostly through USAID. And what
makes her program unique is its emphasis on local partners. DR. JOAN CASTRO (through translator):
Which brand of birth control pills are you selling more of? WOMAN (through translator):
Well, they like the yellow one because it's cheaper. DR. JOAN CASTRO (through translator):
How much is it? MAN (through translator): It used to be 35 pesos. Then it was 38. Now
it's 41. DR. JOAN CASTRO: The idea is to be able to bring access to the people. SAM EATON:
Access that in remote villages like Humayhumay was nonexistent before the PATH Foundation
came in. In just six years since the program was first established here, family sizes have
plummeted from as many as 12 children to a maximum of about four today. This village
is one of the PATH Foundation's longest-running case studies. And what it's showing is how
closely tied family planning is with environmental conservation and putting food on the table.
Out on the Danajon double barrier reef, where Jason Bostero fishes every morning, the shift
to smaller families is already paying dividends. He and his neighbors have created a marine
preserve to help revive fish stocks. And it's working. With smaller families, thinking about
future generations is a luxury fishermen like Bostero can afford. JASON BOSTERO (through
translator): Family planning is helpful, because, if you control the number of your children,
you don't need as many fish to support your family. If you have many children, it's difficult
to support them. SAM EATON: Outside of Humayhumay, where birth control remains largely out of
reach, the struggle to put food on the table from one day to the next dominates life. Down
the road, the gymnasium in the region's main town, Ubay, was filled recently with people
waiting to collect government assistance checks for food. Many stood in line for up to 12
hours. For the families gathered here, these checks are a lifeline, making up for the declining
catch from the sea. This scene is one that neighboring countries like Thailand and Indonesia
have largely avoided, thanks to state-sponsored family planning programs. But Congressman
Walden Bello says, in the Philippines, any efforts to do the same have faced stiff resistance.
WALDEN BELLO: What's happening is what we have witnessed recently, which is a hard-line,
scorched-earth opposition on the part of the Catholic Church hierarchy to any form of artificial
contraception. SAM EATON: And in a country that's 80 percent Catholic, that opposition
means something. For more than a decade, the church's leadership has rallied against a
reproductive health bill in Congress that would guarantee universal access to birth
control. Recently, it even threatened the president with excommunication for supporting
the bill. OSCAR CRUZ, Filipino Archbishop Emeritus: That's why I say, don't fool with
the church, because she will bury you. SAM EATON: Filipino Archbishop Emeritus Oscar
Cruz says the key to everyone having enough food to eat is a question of development,
not population control. OSCAR CRUZ: Once, I was asked, which would you prefer, to have
less mouths to feed or to have more food to eat? And I said, is there a choice there?
Come on, if you have more mouths to feed, then produce more food to eat, not the other
way around. SAM EATON: But that challenge to produce more food is already testing the
limits of ecosystems, both on land and sea. Today, the Philippines imports more rice than
any other nation on the planet. And according to the World Bank, every major species of
fish here shows signs of severe overfishing. Technological advances have helped boost the
food supply, but they've failed to keep pace with the Philippine's surging population growth.
Maternity wards like this one at a Manila hospital are overwhelmed. Dr. Esmeraldo Ilem
heads the hospital's family planning unit, but spends most of his time these days with
new mothers. DR. ESMERALDO ILEM, Philippines: She's only 29 years old. This is her seventh
child. SAM EATON: According to the Guttmacher Institute, more than half of all pregnancies
in the Philippines are unintended. It's the poor who come here for maternity care. But
if they want to prevent pregnancies, they're out of luck. Absent any state funding for
birth control, Dr. Ilem has little to offer. That's a stark contrast to the Bohol Island
fishing village, Humayhumay, where family planning is as close as the corner store.
Here, the PATH Foundation Philippines program has taken on a life of its own. The project
is now fully integrated with the local government's rural health unit. DR. JOAN CASTRO: The vision
of the project is in this community you see more children educated who are able to become
leaders and speak out for themselves in the future and be able to become stewards of their
own sexuality and the future environment. This is the legacy. SAM EATON: Dr. Castro
says success stories like this one can help overcome traditional attitudes about birth
control. Jason and Crisna Bostero, both practicing Catholics, don't see a conflict between their
religious beliefs and family planning. For them, it's about something much more immediate,
like what kind of future they're going to pass on to their two children. CRISNA BOSTERO
(through translator): I don't want them to be like us, just to fish the sea, just to
farm the land. This is not an easy way to earn a living. You are exposed to the sun.
It's better if they can finish their courses, so they can have comfortable lives. SAM EATON:
With both of their children in school, the Bosteros are hopeful about their future. But
it's a future that could easily be overwhelmed by outside forces. After all, this is only
one village in a country still deadlocked over a family planning law, in a world that's
projected to have nine billion mouths to feed by the middle of the century. GWEN IFILL:
Sam Eaton's reporting on the Philippines food story continues tonight on American Public
Media's Marketplace. Listen to it on your public radio station. You can also find an
interactive map, a timeline, and many more resources at the Food for 9 Billion website.
There's a link to it on NewsHour.PBS.org. CREDITS Reporter/Producer: Sam Eaton Camera:
Sam Eaton Editor: Charlotte Buchen Local Fixer: Carlos Conde Additional Field Translation:
Mercy Butawan Consulting Producer: Stephen Talbot Series Producer: Cassandra Herrman
Executive Producer, Food for 9 Billion: Sharon Tiller hic] hic] hic] hic] urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
PlaceName urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags PlaceType urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
City urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags country-region urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
place JEFFREY BROWN: And now to the Philippines, a country struggling to cope with its rapidly
growing population Normal Microsoft Office Word JEFFREY BROWN: And now to the Philippines,
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