The Philippines’ current population growth is likely to be slowest since 1946, according to the country’s Commission on Population and Development.
The government body said it is projecting the slowest population rise this year with only a 0.3 percent increase in its population growth, equivalent to 324,000 more Filipinos.
In a statement sent to the media, the commission said the annual “natural increase” in the country’s population was about 254,000 in 1946 to 1947.
The “natural increase” in population, or natural population change, refers to the projection based on the number of births minus deaths in a particular time period.
This puts the total number of Filipinos in the country to 109,991,095 by Dec. 31, 2021, much lower than the earlier projections by two million based on a population growth rate of 1.63 percent.
The population commission’s calculations were based on the Philippine Statistics Authority’s vital statistics preliminary reports for the period January 2020 to August 2021.
Juan Antonio Perez, the commission’s executive director, attributed the slow population growth to Filipinos becoming prudent by delaying having children or forming families due to the economic crisis and the pandemic.
He said couples continue to avail of family planning commodities and services in all regions of the country, with eight million users of modern family planning methods in 2020.
Perez said the low population growth will allow the country and households to recover from the pandemic.
He clarified, however, that the projected population for 2021 does not cover international migration.
