How can one keep on having children

MANILA, Philippines (-Doria Flores, a scavenger in the Payatas dumpsite in the Philippines' capital city, almost died while giving birth a few years ago. She didn't, but she lost her seventh child.

That was the day she decided to have her fallopian tubes tied to make sure she does not get pregnant again. That was the day she realized enough is enough.

"How can one keep on having children? We don't earn enough to feed them, much less send them to school," said Flores, a 48-year-old mother of six.

The Philippines has a population of about 90 million people, the 12th largest in the world. If the annual growth rate of just over 2 percent persists, the population is expected to balloon to about 177.2 million by 2041.

Women from the poorest households have six children on average, while the national average is 3.5 children, according to the Manila-based University of the Philippines Population Institute.

This puts women such as Flores at the epicenter of a heated debate over a bill under debate here since September 2008 to create the Philippines' first national reproductive health and family planning program.

Last May legislators, led by Rep. Edcel Lagman, a five-term congressman, proposed the bill to create the program, which would cost the government about $42 million annually to distribute information and contraceptives. The costs would average about one cent per woman of reproductive age daily.