The population issue - now passé elsewhere in the developing world, even in the poorer countries - remains a durable puzzle in the Philippines. On the one hand, a majority of Filipinos regard rapid population growth as an impediment to socioeconomic development, requiring policy intervention;...

Following an earlier paper titled 'Population and Poverty: The Real Score' (UPSE Discussion Paper 0415, December 2004), the present paper was first issued in August 2008 as a contribution to the public debate on the population issue that never seemed to die in this country. The debate heated up...