THE government has been complacent in the implementation of the responsible parenthood law to address the population explosion in the country, a Protestant minister said yesterday.

Bishop Efraim Tendero, national director of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches, said the law, which promotes proper spacing of children, has been ignored when it could have checked the ballooning population.

“We lack the education about responsible parenthood that’s why many have been turning to artificial use of contraception,” Tendero said during the launching of the anti-poverty movement, Filipino Evangelical Action for Social Transformation.

While the Catholic Church continues to resist population control through the use of contraceptives, Tendero said Protestant groups support the use of artificial methods.

“We are in favor of artificial method and more importantly we have been also supportive of responsible parenthood,” he said, stressing that educating couples on how to space childbirths would be economically beneficial to many families.

“They would have time to care for their children, providing them with their needs,” Tendero said.

But the Protestant bishop pointed out that though they support the ways of artificially controlling the population growth, most Protestants are still against abortion.

“We are categorically against any form of abortion, but to prevent fertilization [of female eggs] is not abortion,” Tendero said, noting that there is only a “theological difference” between the Catholics and Protestants on the issue.

Earlier, Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines president Archbishop Angel Lagdameo said the Church’s opposition to the use of artificial birth control methods remains unchanged.

“Surveys favoring contraceptives or birth control will not alter the Church’s position and insistence in teaching the objective moral laws regarding the dignity of human life and family,” he said.

Lagdameo belittled the survey which indicates that nine out of 10 Filipinos support birth control, noting that there were 1,800 respondents.

“Our Catholic family life apostolate spread all over the country is not shocked by statistics which involves interviewees,” Lagdameo said, reacting to call of the Forum for Family Planning and Development to soften on its stand on the use of contraceptives.

The CBCP head also cited that in countries where the use of artificial contraception is accepted, the incidence of abortion is high.

He countered the survey with the figures from the United Nations which estimates that the decline in population growth in the country is from 2.36 percent to 1.84 percent.

“We are already declining in number. Soon, as in many developed countries, there will be more old people for the government to support and less young people to run the economy,” he said. Dennis Carcamo