Family planning in the Philippines has been driven underground. 
by Fread Pearce for New Scientist

Nellie put on her platform shoes, tottered past the display of multicoloured condoms with animal heads, thanked me for one of the better tricks of the week and headed out again to sell her body in the Manila night. 
I went home to bed.

Our encounter was only an interview, held in the offices of ReachOut, a clinic for prostitutes in the Philippine capital. But it revealed much about why the country is turning into a demographic nightmare. Nellie told of a city where the mayor has banned contraceptives from clinics. Of a country where the half-a-million abortions each year are all illegal- and where even the Muslim clergy are more liberal on family planning than the Catholics led by the aptly named Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila.

In October this year, the world's population hits 6 billion. With birth rates falling faster than ever in many countries, there is no need to panic. Except that in others: such as the Philippines, the traditional demographic model of birth rates declining as prosperity and female literacy grow is not working. The Philippines has a fertility rate of 3.8 children per woman. That is higher than Bangladesh, even though its average earnings are three times as high and its female illiteracy levels twelve times lower.

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