In the Philippines, a largely Catholic country, close to 4,000 babies are born every day. Each year, the population swells by 1.5 million — close to a third that of Singapore.
At the end of last year, the Philippines, already the 12th most populous country in the world, hit the 84 million mark. At an annual growth rate of 2.36 per cent, one of the world's highest, the population will have doubled by 2033 and may well reach 200 million by 2042, putting the country at risk, economists say.
These alarming figures, especially with the Philippine economy in a tailspin, have prompted President Gloria Arroyo to launch an aggressive "Freedom from Pregnancy" campaign.
The Church has urged Catholic health workers not to support the family planning programme, stressing that the only approved birth control measures were so-called "natural family planning", the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
It has blasted Mrs Arroyo's family planning programme, saying it "desecrates the sanctity of marriage and family life" and "violates and mocks the privacy and autonomy of couples and families". Catholics were also advised to "resist the enticements of false freedoms and counterfeit rights," said a statement, signed by Archbishop Fernando Capalla, head of the bishops' conference.
Mrs Arroyo, a devout Catholic, has been careful to avoid angering the Church, but political analysts say the Philippines economic recovery programme would need, among other things, a curb in population growth.
One shocking find by health workers: Nearly 30 per cent of couples are unaware that having sex can result in babies.
"They do not know how pregnancy happens," even though some of them have had numerous children already, Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said yesterday in an AFP report.
The field workers found that in many of these cases, the couples believed the children were simply gifts from God.
"Often times people do things even if they don't understand why they do it," Mr Dayrit said, attributing the ignorance about sex to the conservatism of Philippine society.
"A lot of it is cultural because people don't talk about sex," he said, noting that "knowledge is often tempered by values. And if the values are such that they will reject knowledge, there's nothing you can do".
But he hoped that the campaign would help couples realise that they can prevent pregnancies if they want to.
Last month, another survey showed that only one in three use any form of birth control even though 96 per cent think a state family planning programme would help the nation.
More than half of the respondents also said they would be willing to purchase birth control devices on their own, contrary to fears that people will not use contraceptives unless they are offered to them for free.