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Monday, May 19, 2003
Gulle: Too much, too many, too little
By Inocentes A. Gulle
WHENEVER the adverb 'too' is used you can be sure any adjective that follows would carry a negative connotation.
Sad to say, that's about how almost everything modifies Monday. For example, "Too many cooks spoil the broth." And we often hear complaints like, there's too much politics in this country. Or, there's too much corruption in government; too few jobs to be had; too little food to go around; and too much pollution and what have you.
About the sum of it all is that there's too much burden imposed by too many that care too little about our planet's meager and fragile life support system. I think the crux of the whole proposition is people - too many of them. Maybe things wouldn't have been so bad were there fewer people on earth Monday. At least there'd be more elbowroom, less chance of anyone getting in somebody else's way.
However, despite everything, it wouldn't be so bad were there more of love and tolerance of our fellows and less of selfishness and greed. Problem is, most of us want to have more than the rest. That's probably why we do everything to gain power, so that we can grab more. And, by all appearances, that's about the gist of all that's happening to the world Monday.
Maybe it's time to really put in place, in earnest, without equivocation, the brakes to the rapid multiplication of the human species.
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Reports say the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid) has stopped giving for free birth control devices - contraceptive pills, condoms, etc. Anyone who wants to have any of them would have to pay.
Some say that that would set back the family planning programs being advocated by some NGOs. Studies, however, reveal that it would not affect too much those that practice family planning (birth control, if you may). They can, more or less, afford to pay for the process and materials.
On the other hand, those who are averse to the idea are the ones that need it more than the others as they are among the poorest segment of society. These are the ones NGOs and the government should give prior attention.
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Among the various methods of preventing conception, vasectomy is perhaps the safest and the quickest. It is a simple, painless operation, cutting the vas deferens, the tube the sperm passes through from the testicle to the penis. However, only those who have decided to have no children permanently should submit to this procedure. Although reversible, the chances of success in reversal operation are very little besides the fact that the operation is expensive and a lot more complicated.
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It's not true that vasectomy reduces one's masculinity. I can personally attest to the fact that it does not in any way affect one's physical constitution. I had mine almost 30 years ago and until now I have not experienced any physical change in my person. Perhaps for a 70 year-old, I can perform physical tasks as good as some people I know 20 years my junior who did not have vasectomy.
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Do I feel guilty about it? Definitely no. I think I would perhaps feel guilty instead, if we had 10 or 11 children and we could not feed them properly. Looking at things now I think I would even be guiltier had I contributed to our present economic difficulties by abetting the unmitigated increase in our population.
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For a country this small, with a perennially moribund economy, with almost 3% annual population increase, the point of saturation is dangerously close. With poor government fiscal management, ethnic, cultural, and religious prejudice, plagued by self-centered leftists and political charlatans, need we elaborate on what to expect?
Why add to the burdensome situation?
Too much, too many, too little
(May 19, 2003 issue)
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