Population Control 2: Big Government and Climate Alarmism

This is the continuation of my new discussion series, "Population Control". I am posting here two articles which I wrote last February 01 and May 19 this year. From here, Parts 3 onwards, I will be posting more new papers on the subject.
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(1) Population policy: Big Govt or Big Church?

February 01, 2011

Population remains a thorny topic for many quarters and governments around the world. So many graphs have been shown where as population size increases, per capita income decreases. So people make some causality analysis, one is caused by the other, but which one really causes the other?

This is one of the issues tackled by Barun Mitra, Founder and Director of the Liberty Institute in Delhi, India. Barun gave a talk at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty (FNF) Manila office last week, January 27 evening. In this picture, Barun is between me and Jules Maaten, FNF Resident Manager in the Philippines. The audience wasn't big (short notice and preparation) but the discussion was intense and very lively. I had to cut the discussion by 8:30pm as food was ready and discussions can still continue over nice food and wine.

Before Barun talked, I gave Jules a copy of my first book, "Health Choices and Responsibilities", 230 pages, published by Central Book Supply Inc., and was delivered to me only 2 weekends ago.

Barun showed several graphs and tables. One table that struck me was the expected number of new working age population from 2010-2020. India about 123 million, China only around 25 million! The one-child policy coercion by the Chinese government since the 70s has caught up with it. Lots of Chinese are now ageing, the number of young Chinese who will work to support themselves, their elders, other seniors with no children, the government bureaucracy, will not be enough soon.

This will have huge demographic, economic and political implications for China. The hundreds of thousands of factories in China will soon be using foreign workers or robots to keep up production. Millions of productive and entrepreneurial Chinese who have 2 or more children are living in Hong Kong, US, Philippines and other countries.

About the Reproductive Health (RH) bill being debated in Philippine Congress, I actually did not study it much because my impression is that it is a battle between a big Government and a big Catholic church, each trying to influence or impose their respective wills on an otherwise autonomous unit -- the household. Barun told me that between a big G and a big C, he'd choose the latter. Me too.

What I don't like in the RH bill is one provision where sex education will become part of public education curriculum. What? Less hours for science, math and english, to accommodate more sectoral issues like population, environment, HIV, and others pushed by various influential groups and their respective political agenda?

A trying-hard nanny state like the Philippine government would have the implicit desire to limit natural population growth (ie, population control) because more population of the poor would mean bigger demand for public education, public health, public housing, public credit, etc.

Which is the fault of a BIG government that wants to assume more government responsibilities and would give little room for personal and parental responsibilities. Why is education a government responsibility and not parental responsibility (at least at the tertiary level) by the way?

After Barun's lecture, nice food, softdrinks and wine took the center stage. Here with my fellow UPSE alumni, Gary Makasiar (to my left) and Simplicio Endaya and his wife. Barun was being pulled from one corner to another as the participants wanted to hear more ideas and data from him.

Coming from the world's 2nd biggest population country, and advocating the philosophy of more individual responsibility and more personal freedom, Barun is indeed among the best persons to talk about the subject of population policy.

(2) Control population to fight global warming

May 19, 2011

One of the serious implications of climate alarmism movement is to blame high global population. More people means more cars and buses, more planes and airports, more houses and schools, more factories and buildings, which will require more energy and electricity, which are generally fossil fuel-based, which contribute to more global warming and man-made climate change.

Thus, to help fight global warming is... you guess it: control population. Less people means less SUVS and tricycles, less boats and trains, less malls and shops, less energy and less power plants. Thus, they can "stabilize" the global climate and fight warming. Bright ideas.

But some alarmists do not stop there. They even identified the magic number that is the "carrying capacity" of the earth. Beyond that population carrying capacity, the planet's socio-economic infrastructures can explode. And what is that magic population carrying capacity?

Just 1 billion. We are now around 7 billion people in planet Earth. Meaning there are currently 6 billion "excess" people, which are responsible for unequivocal global warming. Can you believe that?

If you don't, then see this. Click to get a larger image.

That's from the NYT's dotearth blog, Scientist: Warming Could Cut Population to 1 Billion, dated March 13, 2009. The scientist quoted there was Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany. He said that

if the buildup of greenhouse gases and its consequences pushed global temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today — well below the upper temperature range that scientists project could occur from global warming — Earth’s population would be devastated.

“In a very cynical way, it’s a triumph for science because at last we have stabilized something –- namely the estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people,”

H/t to NoTricksZone article.

It is noticeable why the same groups that push for more environmental regulations, more carbon and energy taxation, more climate bureaucracies and global climate meetings, more climate loans "to save the planet", are the same groups who are pushing for population control policies -- the government, backed up by the UN, WB, ADB, USAID, EU, WHO, and many other multilaterals and foreign aid bodies.

The Philippines is the world's 12th most populous country now. At 1.8 million additional Filipinos per year, net of death and migration, we should reach the 100 million mark sometime in 2013-14 or in just 3 years or less. Thus, the population control groups are rushing hard to enact the RH or "Responsible Parenthood" bill into a law.
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See also related papers:

1. Responsible Parenthood cannot be legislated, Part 22. World's largest population, 2010,

3. Philippine population 2010 by province,
4. EFN Asia Members Meet and Talk in the Philippines, and 

5. Population Growth? No Problem, Says Indian Think Tank)

Drug price control 15: Price regulations board

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the House of Representatives to attend the public hearing of the Committee on Trade and Industry on two House Bills (HBs). One is HB No. 1228 of Reps. Diosdado Macapagal-Arroyo and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (former President), “An Act to Require Manufacturers or Labelers of Prescription Drugs to Report their Annual Marketing Costs” and HB No. 1386 of Rep. Ferjenel G. Biron, “An Act Establishing the Drug Price Regulatory Board to Regulate the Prices of Drugs and Medicines in the Philippines Amending for the Purpose Republic Act NO. 9502..."

My quick position on both HBs is that they are both wrong and idiotic. But given limited time, I only prepared a position paper on Cong. Biron's bill. Below is my letter to the Committee Chairman which I personally handed to him after the hearing.
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23 August 2011

HON. ALBERT S. GARCIA
Chairman
Committee on Trade & Industry
House of Representatives
Batasan Complex, Quezon City


Dear Cong. Garcia,

We would like to submit our position paper on HB 1386 of Cong. Ferjenel Biron, “An Act Establishing the Drug Price Regulatory Board to Regulate the Prices of Drugs and Medicines in the Philippines Amending RA 9502”, below.

After two years (as of August 15, 2011) of drug price regulation or price control policy through E0 821 and the voluntary price reduction scheme, we have basis for saying that the policy is wrong for the following reasons.

1. The policy contradicted, if not defeated, the goals of the Generics Act of 1988. That law was generally successful in promoting cheaper generics, off-patent drugs to the public. The drug price control policy however, encouraged people to shift back to the branded and patented drugs by multinational pharmaceutical companies as the price of the latter have been coerced by the government to become 50 percent cheaper.

2. The policy benefited the rich and upper middle class who would be buying those drugs covered by price control whether their price remained at their high level or were forced to be 50 percent cheaper. Many if not all of the 22 drug molecules that were covered by the policy have cheaper, off-patent competing drugs already available. The poor were patronizing the off-patent drugs which are still cheaper compared to the branded drugs by the multinationals even if their prices have been slashed by half.

3. The policy has adversely affected many local generic manufacturers. If they were selling their drug brand X at P10 per tablet vs. the multinationals’ P18, the locals were making enough profit as many poorer people will be patronizing their products because of the big price differential compared with the branded drugs by the multinationals.

After the price control, the P18 becomes P9 and the local generics manufacturers now have the “more expensive” drugs. If they have enough leeway to further bring down their price to only P5 or lower without sacrificing the quality and safety of their drugs, good, and suffer a substantial profit reduction. But if they do not have enough leeway, then they will be forced to pull out their drugs rather than sell at a loss. T

4. The policy has introduced business uncertainty. Someone with a really innovative, creative and revolutionary product (a more disease-killer drug, a more cutting-edge laptop or cell phone model, etc.) might hesitate bringing that product to the country knowing that the politics of envy can hit them anytime.

5. There is already a healthy competition among generics and innovator companies as there are just very few patented drugs in the market now. Majority are off-patent and hence, are open for manufacturing by more generics companies, local or foreign.

6. Price control simply means price dictatorship. The government is dictating to the affected industry players that regardless of the cost of production and marketing, the cost of taxes and fees they must pay, those companies must sell their products at a level that was set and dictated by the government. Otherwise, these players can be declared as violators of the law and are subject to certain fines and penalties.

The proposed creation of a Drug Prices Regulation Board is also wrong for the following reasons:

1. It will add another layer of bureaucracy in the government, which will require another set of budgetary allocation each year. At P300 billion per year average budget deficit, the government should think of how to reduce if not eradicate the need for more borrowings, not add more debts. The on-going global financial turmoil is caused by heavy public debt by the governments of the US, Spain, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and a few others.

2. The DOH Advisory Council on Price Regulation, the body that deliberated the implementation and monitoring of the price control since August 15, 2009, has been transformed into the Advisory Council for Healthcare because there is general recognition by the Council members that price control did not work. Since the Council is not a permanent body, it is easy to transform itself and focus its discussions and energy in discussing the more important issue of universal healthcare, not just drugs pricing. A permanent drug regulation body will only become a white elephant in the future implementing and monitoring a bad policy.

In conclusion, we are not supporting HB 1386. Congress should instead review and reassess RA 9502 if its provisions are still practical or not, We are attaching a book, Health Choices and Responsibilities written by the undersigned. The book has discussed the experience of drug price control policy in the country more extensively.

We hope you will consider our observations. Thank you very much.

Sincerely yours,


Bienvenido “Nonoy” Oplas, Jr.
President
Minimal Government Thinkers, Inc.
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Cong. Garcia, the Committee Chairman, is young. The author of HB 1386 and Committee Vice-Chairman, Cong. Biron, is a veteran legislator. The meeting started about 1:40pm and after the opening statement of the Chairman, Cong. Biron delivered his long sponsorship speech of his bill. The first resource speakers who called were from the Department of Health (DOH) headed by Assistant Secretary Ubial. After the DOH presentation, Cong. Biron asked more questions and re-emphasized the points he already mentioned in his sponsorship speech. I think that from 1:45 to 2:45pm, it was largely a Cong. Biron monologue. The audience were treated to a "public listening" instead of public hearing.

Anyway, other speakers were called and gave their position on the bill -- from FDA, IPO, DTI, PhilHealth, PHAP, PHA, Mercury, DSAP, AGAP.

I sometimes think that the DOH is a confused bureaucracy that continues to implement the drug price control policy despite overwhelming evidence that it has not attained its objective after 2 years of implementation. But when I heard Cong. Biron, I begin to appreciate the DOH. The latter has more sense saying that "there is role for market forces and competition in drug pricing", compared to certain legislators so determined to push their agenda accusing the DOH, "Is the DOH Secretary afraid to implement the law that he cannot expand the list of drugs to be put under price control?"

I was wondering why the Philippine Chamber of Pharmaceutical Industry (PCPI, federation of mostly local generic pharma companies) guys were not there yesterday. The common impression is that drug price control hits the multinational pharma and spares the local generic firms. Wrong. The policy hits both, as I discussed above in my letter. I thought that if Atty. Joey Ochave of Unilab was there, he could have silenced Cong. Biron with his more persuasive arguments why price control is wrong.

Congress is often the home of populism and heavy statism. Just create new subsidies and bureaucracies to help the poor and let Batman and Spiderman find the money to finance them.

It is important that a really liberal ideology-based political party and groups should tame such populism and statism in the legislature. Otherwise, we ordinary folks will be spending more of our time and money following idiotic laws and unfunded laws which should have never been enacted in the first place.

Finally, I personally handed Cong. Garcia a copy of my book, he was happy. He thanked me twice I think :-) I also gave the Committee Secretary, Val Palanca, a copy of the book. I hope they will read it and be persuaded that price control is price dictatorship is wrong.

Drug price control 14: Another book review, Health Choices and Responsibilities

My first book, Health Choices and Responsibilities, 230 pages, published last January this year, simply argued that to attain good health outcome, there are various choices that individuals and societal leaders (private companies, government, NGOs, etc.) can choose. And there are responsibilities -- individual, parental, corporate, government -- attached to those choices.

In short, it is not just "Health is a Right." More importantly, "Health is a Choice, and Health is a Responsibility."

I am happy that some friends have written a review of my book. Like Froilan Bersamina who owns The Vincenton Post.

Froilan is probably the most articulate or the most prolific Filipino follower of Objectivism philosophy of Ayn Rand. In his blog post today Book Review: “Health Choices and Responsibilities” by Nonoy Oplas, Froilan wrote:

...Oplas discussed in detail the following issues: the Department of Health (DOH) Advisory Council on price regulation, discount cards versus discounted competition, the need to protect intellectual property rights, health politics, price controls, the impact of innovation and competition on drug prices and drug quality, the issue of rights and responsibilities, government intervention and regulations, the hypocrisy and intellectual bankruptcy of the left and pro-government control of the pharmaceutical and health care industry, health insurance monopoly, and the role of free market in drug innovation, competition, and drug quality and prices.

Understanding the country’s health care system and politics requires a rational and objective process of thought. If one is to properly appraise the health care situation in the country, one must not merely look into one particular side of the issue and the immediate, short-range effects of a particular government policy on a given sector. That is, one must understand the ideology and political motivations behind the country’s current and previous health care policies.

In the words of Oplas, the government’s anti-business health care policies and drug price controls were motivated by socialism or populism. This means that the country’s mediocre, populist health care system is the ultimate result of our politicians’ intellectual bankruptcy— or their failure to understand the indisputable link between freedom and economic success.

“It is dangerous to mix liberalism with socialism. Liberalism, in its literal meaning, is to liberate, to free, to remove or limit coercion. Socialism, in its literal meaning, is to socialize, to collectivize, by force and coercion,” the book states.

Five months ago, another friend and free market blogger, Paul H. who owns Colorful Rag wrote this review, REVIEW: ‘HEALTH CHOICES AND RESPONSIBILITIES’ last March 28, 2011. Paul wrote,

... Oplas tells some depressing stuff about the present health care situation, such as of retailers getting hammered by the new rules, to the point of having to lay off workers. From one of his stories, it is shown that the government doesn’t really want free health care or free education ― what it wants is the control over these sectors, the people be damned. State monopolies and regulation are big money, and the only beneficiaries in such a system are the politicians and their cronies.

Oplas himself says that his book can be summed up in the idea that “health care is a personal and parental responsibility.” The state has to step aside for people to be empowered.

The drawback to compiling blog entries and presentations for a book, is that while there is a continuity to ideas expressed, part of the informal style of the blog or presentation is retained, which may be disorienting, especially when there are references made on events of the time, of which the present reader would not remember specifically. But this concerns merely the style of Oplas’ book, and not its substance, the latter being founded on good economics.

I feel however that Oplas does not go far enough with his thesis statement. Just as the great economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek did, Oplas concedes to the government the responsibility to handle health epidemics and other emergencies. I am of the opinion that people have the ability to organize and coordinate just as well, or even better, than any coercive institution, hence my disagreement on this matter.

Meanwhile, another friend, Eddie Vega, a friend way back in UP Diliman and now a Consul General at the Department of Foreign Affairs (most recently in Barcelona, Spain, now back in the US, NYC). Ed does not have a blog but he made a brief discussion about my book in his facebook wall. Thanks Ed.

I hope I can finish my 2nd book on the subject sometime this year.
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Drug price control 12: Blog posts on page 1 of Google, Yahoo and Bing, August 14, 2011

My first book: Health Choices and Responsibilities

I've been blogging since late 2005 and prior to that, I've been engaged in some online debates via different yahoogroups since around 1998. The "itch" to write a book has been there since around 2007.

Then last December, a friend, Rodolfo "Ozone" Azanza, who has written already two small books like This is Your Kung-Fu: Deliberate Mindsets for the Non-Hermits, introduced me to his publisher, Central Book Supply Inc. in Quezon City. I said that I want my first book in the first month of 2011. After communicating with the publisher, I sent the final draft to them by January 11, 2011 (1-11-11). In less than 2 weeks, the book was delivered to me. Yehey!

In the introduction of the book, I wrote this: Finally, I chose the title Health Choices and Responsibilities because of my two firm beliefs: One, people have control and choices in taking care of their body and mind, that there are plenty of individual choices to be healthy or be sickly, and there are many choices in financing healthcare. And two, healthcare is mainly a personal and parental responsibility, although a few health issues should fall under government responsibility.

The girls on the cover? Well, they are my wife and my two young daughters :-) I chose them to be in the cover to emphasize my point above that in order to have a healthy population, parents (or guardians) should work hard -- zero complacency or alibi -- to have healthy kids. Parents should rely on themselves, their family members and friends, and not on the government, to ensure the good health and good future of their children, or their poorer relatives' children.

Here's a portion of the back cover: ...Drug price control policy has the undesirable result of institutionalizing predatory pricing. By forcing the multinationals to bring down their popular drugs, the government has imposed unfair pricing that can result in the demise of some products by local firms which do not have enough leeway in further price cuts.

This affirms Newton’s third law of motion: “for every action, there is an equal, opposite reaction.” For every government intervention, there is an equal, opposite result that needs another intervention....

Government should come in cases of disease outbreak and similar health emergencies. Otherwise, it should step back, it should not over-tax medicines, and it should encourage more competition among health enterprises, allow the public to have more choices. More choice means more freedom.

I have given away my book to a number of friends, especially to the godparents of my two kids :-), other friends in the free market movement. Like Barun Mitra (middle), founder and director of Liberty Institute in India, and Jules Maaten (beside me), resident manager of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for LIBERTY (FNF). The others in the picture are friends from the UPSE Alumni Association, Sim Endaya and Gary Makasiar.

I kept postponing the posting of this story about my book for several weeks now. I prefer to write other topics than about my book. But then another free market friend, Paul of Colorful Rag blog, already wrote a review about my book yesterday, Review: "Health Choices and Responsibilities".

I profusely thanked him for such early plugging of my book. And mind you, I gave him my book only last Saturday night. By Monday morning, he already wrote a book review. He's the reason why I was forced to write and introduce my book here today :-)

Paul is a brutal, frank, and independent-minded free market intellectual. Though he has lots of praises about my book, he also has several punches of critique about it. Which I am really thankful.

There is nothing, zero, in the free market literatures that free marketers should think the same all the time. On the contrary, the free market literature deeply relies on spontaneity and in the absence of central planning -- like what many governments, the UN, and foreign aid bodies do -- and absence of uniformity. Diversity and spontaneity. They are the hallmarks of the free market, individual liberty movement.

Ohh, ok. Someone asked me, "Where can we buy your book if you don't give us a complimentary copy?"

It's available at Central Books, they have online store and a few bookstores around the country. Their main office and bookstore is in 927 Quezon Avenue, Phoenix Building, Quezon City. The building is in front of Pegasus bar I think.

Soon it will be available at www.divisoria.com too. And the UPSE cooperative store at UP School of Economics, Diliman, Quezon City, also sells it.

* Update: I've uploaded the book in scribd.com here. Thanks.