Some Filipino economists are barking up the wrong tree when they attribute Thailand’s success even partially to population control. Quantitative techniques of comparative simulation studies can arrive at dangerous conclusions if they ignore the non-economic dimensions of a proposed solution to poverty such as the massive distribution of condoms and other artificial contraceptives to lower the birth rate.

In a study of the Asia-Pacific Policy Center that used econometric techniques, the growth experiences of the Philippines and Thailand over the 1976-2000 period were compared. The study hypothesized that if the Philippines had been able to maintain a population growth equal to that of Thailand during the 25-year period studied, there would have been an approximate .76 percent annual increase in the average income per person in the Philippines. On a cumulative basis, the study concludes, there would have been an increase of 22 percent on the average per capita income by 2000.

This study manifests a typical example of the economist’s naïve ceteris paribus (all other things being equal) assumption. Well, I have news for those who swallowed hook, line, and sinker the policy prescription of such a study. Not all things remained equal as Thailand brought its birth rate down. During that period, because of the sexual promiscuity encouraged by the rampant use of condoms, Thailand became the AIDS epicenter of East Asia, with some one million Thais infected with HIV. Some 460,000 have died over the last 20 years. Compare these figures to the less than 15,000 AIDS patients in the Philippines, for which we were recently commended by the United Nations for having one of the lowest HIV infection rates in the Asia Pacific region.

In the recent 15th International AIDS Conference held in Bangkok, officials of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) warned that Thailand is losing the battle against HIV, with the virus spreading unchecked among certain vulnerable groups, despite the much-vaunted 100 percent Condom Use Program promoted by a famous Thai industrialist. According to UN resident coordinator Robert England, "the epidemic is evolving and there are now clear signs of a new wave of infections." Thailand is losing its battle against AIDS.

If Thailand’s getting a US$2,000 per capita income is at the cost of having one million AIDS patients and the high probability of an epidemic infecting even more people, the growth rate comparisons of the study of the Asia-Pacific Policy Center referred to above are rendered meaningless. We economists have to be careful with our use of the assumption ceteris paribus.

It took Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni to remind the delegates to the Bangkok International AIDS Conference that aggressively promoting condom use can be counterproductive. As the Thai case indicates, if you encourage human beings to copulate at will, without any restraint like irrational beasts, no amount of condom use will prevent the spread of HIV. A copulation explosion always has unintended effects — sexually transmitted disease and, as in the case of the United States, millions of abortions despite the widespread availability of contraceptive devices.

President Museveni is right: Abstinence is the best way to stem the spread of the killer virus. Teaching men and women to act as human beings who use their freedom of choice in accordance with natural law is the only reasonable manner of fighting HIV. "I look at condoms as an improvisation, not a solution," Museveni told the delegates in Bangkok. He could speak with authority because his country is a rare success story in Africa’s war on AIDS.