[27] Population control has to be ruled out as a solution to poverty. To clarify this statement, does “ruling out population control” mean that we should tell the people to have as many children as they can, to uncontrollably “go forth and multiply,” as some claim the Church teaches? No. Since population control involves encouraging (or even forcing–physically, economically, morally or otherwise) people to have few children, “ruling out population control” simply means not encouraging people to have few children, which is entirely different from telling them to have all the children they can possibly produce.
Parents should instead be guided and supported to attain the number of children they can generously and responsibly raise and educate. For some spouses, this means having one child or two; for others, five, ten, twelve, fifteen or even more. Neither the government nor the Church may compel, instruct, or encourage spouses to raise a specified number of children, as what population control programs definitely try to do, either through massive propaganda, or through deceptive and coercive policies. Rather, the government and the Church should form and guide the people to reflect on their actual circumstances, and to freely, generously and responsibly decide whether to have another child now, or not to have another child for the time being or indefinitely. This is one aspect of responsible parenthood, which the Church has always taught, and which takes into account both the real capacities of individual spouses and the national demographic situation.
[28] This paper has attempted to show that world and Philippine demographic trends, as well as peculiar Philippine conditions such as emigration of young professionals and of whole families, rule out population control as a quick-fix solution to poverty. On the contrary, any economic, social or political policy proposed to solve poverty should take advantage of, rather than suppress, our abundant human resources. As Dr. Gary Becker, 1992 Nobel Prize winner in economic science, explains, “human capital,” which refers to the skills, education, health and training of individuals, comprises around 80% of the wealth of advanced countries, and hence “can be neglected [only] at a country´s peril.”[48]
Any solution to poverty furthermore has to take into account, support and promote our closely knit family ties, the time and dedication parents give to their children, the care children and extended families give to the elderly whom we truly love, the moral principles and holistic training children receive from their parents, and all the other values that the Filipino family has until now maintained, in spite of the pressures exerted upon it by secularism.[49] The contribution to the national economy of these services and values that find their dynamism within the family is impossible to calculate, but they provide a key–the most important one–to good governance in the public and private sectors, a condition sine qua non to attain stability in society, reach economic development and diminish poverty.