WITH wife, Lynette, urgently needing three root canals and replacement crowns, we were faced with the choice of paying the dental prices she was quoted here, sending her back to Japan, where our National Health Insurance would pay most of the bill ... but treatment would take at least a month – or heading to Manila, where she could get everything done for less than half the local price, even including the cost of airfares and hotel.

So off to Manila it was, our first visit to the city since the mid 1990s. Much had changed – tremendous economic development, numerous high rise office buildings and apartment houses, world-class shopping centers, etc., but much remained the same – the friendliness and drive of the people, and the busy energy of the city on the good side ... but also the grinding poverty, the shanty-towns, and the impossible strain still being put on the urban environment by the exploding population.

Lots of lessons here for Guam – and the world.

Culture and history matter ... and they sell – many of us tend to forget that for hundreds of years, Manila was one of the key cities in the worldwide Spanish empire. It was here that gold from the Americas was traded for Chinese silk and Asian spices, items of tremendous value back in Europe. Fortunately, the Filipinos haven’t forgotten. Much of the historical “Intramuros” district within the walls of the old city was carefully restored after the devastation of WWII, and its tourist sites are safe, clean, and very well managed and maintained. It’s a great example for us as we think about the possible renovation of Hagåtña.

Filipino musicians, artists and entrepreneurs are also doing their part. Drawing on the rich diversity of their culture, they are creating some great music and art, fabulous restaurants, and interesting local souvenirs. All of these have obvious benefits for the local economy, and they also serve to help develop and strengthen the cultural identity and pride of the Filipino people. Bravo ... these are exactly the kinds of things we need to do more of on Guam as we target new tourist markets.

Oligarchies cause poverty

Nothing is more disturbing about a visit to the Philippines than seeing the extreme gap that exists between the lives of the ultra-rich few and the huge number of people living in abject poverty. Through entrepreneurship, education and hard work, the middle class is clearly growing, but far too many people in the country still lack even the most basic human needs. Meanwhile, due, perhaps, to the legacies of colonialism and the Marcos dictatorship along with widespread corruption, a huge amount of the country’s wealth remains in the hands of a tiny few. Far from “trickling down” to the ordinary people in the form of productive investment and job creation, much of this money finds its way instead into offshore bank accounts, speculation, and other non-productive uses. For a healthy economy, this money needs to circulate ... but perhaps this lesson is more important for Washington right now than for Guam.

The population bomb is real

Manila City itself is one of 17 cities in the Metropolitan Manila area. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of about 1.6 million people ... all squeezed into an area of about 15 square miles. Looked at another way, that is about 10 times the total population of Guam squeezed into 7 percent of our island’s land mass. As for the larger metropolitan area, it has about 65 times our population on a land area only 20 percent larger than our own. Picture that if you can.

On a country-wide scale, the Philippines has gone from about 27 million in 1960 to some 95 million in 2011. The country’s annual population growth rate of 2.04 percent is one of the highest in Asia.

The effect on the environment is extreme, and the population explosion seems to be overwhelming the country’s development, ensuring that a large portion of the people will continue to live in absolute poverty even as the middle class grows.

Is exactly the same thing likely to happen on Guam? Probably not, but the experience of Manila is nonetheless a stark warning that applies anywhere humans live ... especially on closed ecosystems with limited land – such as Guam ... and Earth itself.

With the greatest respect, I have to ask people whose opposition to birth control comes from their religious beliefs if the catastrophic effects of this overpopulation don’t represent a far greater immorality than does the use of condoms, IUDs and birth control pills.