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Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Gulle: Quality of life in relation to population
By Inocentes A. Gulle
Your Business is Our Business
BEFORE anything else, please accept my apology if I erroneously state the names of the people I am going to cite in this commentary. I was busy mending my jogging shoes when my attention was caught by their discussion in an NBN talk show last night about population in relation to quality of life, that I failed to jot down their names. I have to admit that at 72, most people tend to lose their ability to recall names as readily as when they were younger. However, we do not generally forget as easily subjects of their discussions and pertinent views.
As best as I can squeeze my rotten memory, the closest I can recall is that the host of the show was a Mr. Canaberal, and his guest, a certain Ms. Rosa Linda Valenzona, an economist, or so the label showed. Anyway, I could not miss the latter's discourse that population does not relate to the economy, hence the quality of life, of a nation, or something to that effect. In so many words, she was saying that the size of our population (of 86 million?) or the rapidity of its growth, either, has no bearing on our present economic hardships. She places the blame on the government's inability to effectively husband the nation's resources in order to provide the people with the quality of life it deserved.
I fully agree with her that the government has not been able to manage the affairs of the nation (for so long) that we got ourselves in this mess. Mismanagement, corruption, foreign (American) intervention (exploitation), lack of education of the masses and peace and order disturbances, were some of the causes cited. I did not hear mention of our political idiosyncrasy that is copiously contaminated with clerical interference and communist obstructionism.
Nevertheless, I cannot agree with her that population, or its rapid, explosive growth, has not been a great factor in keeping our economy bogged down. Even if we have never heard of Thomas Robert Malthus, there's no way we can deny the fact that life, in general, was so much easier to live some fifty years ago when were only some 27 million or so, than it is now. (I am not sure of the number now, but I'm certain without fear of contradiction, we were so very much less then than we are today.)
The good lady would not know of course that we used to catch giant tuna with only a meter-long guitar string, only about 500 meters seaward from what they now call Lion Beach. (We used to call that Alunan Beach.) She has no way of knowing, of course, that at that time the lowly Burot, the Pirit, the yellow tailed Cavallas, would churn the sea between where the Makar Wharf is now and the mouth of the Silway River when they go on feeding frenzy. Neither would she know that in 1942 the area from the place where the Kimball Mall stood to the present site of the Social Security System building in Makar, was then teeming with wild guyabano and anonas. It was more than enough food support for the millions of bats that used to live here, and us kids to munch while looking for the much-coveted talaan fighting gagamba (spotted arachnids).
I doubt if the good lady would believe that my father laughed when a friend, Nong Indong (Acharon), told him to get himself the area upwards of what is now Calumpang and no one would bother him. Neither would she believe that my father turned down the offer his B'laan converts to farm (for him) that area of some one thousand hectares between Malapatan and Kitulag.
Would she believe that the Beldads and Alaba families just up and staked their claims on the land now called Alabel? I don't think she would believe, either, that what is now the vast Alcanta property nearby was bought for peanuts by the Ledesmas just after World War II.
Would she believe that if we wanted to eat fresh clams and crabs we would only bring a wicker basket and piece of metal rod and gather them at the Bula hunasan (atoll)?
What happened to all of those free and peaceful places mentioned? Had we not increased that much, we would still be enjoying that kind of easy, free, peaceful and abundant life.
Now, tell those bastards in the riverbanks, in the shorelines and those now fighting for a piece of dirt on which to stick their hovels, that it does not matter as our leaders (the government) would be able to cope with their problem when they would at last be able to put their acts together. Never mind if they multiply like the rats that infest our rice lands up there in the upper valleys.
Just go ahead, produce as many kids as you would.
(November 23, 2004 issue)
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