CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines -- Graft and corruption in government, not a growing population, is among the reasons why poor Filipinos cannot buy enough rice and other food to eat, San Fernando Archbishop Paciano Aniceto said in a homily here on Sunday.

"It is graft and corruption ... that is causing hunger in many of our families, not the growing population," Aniceto, 71, said in Kapampangan during the Mass for the Feast of the Blessed Trinity.

Aniceto, chair of the family life committee of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, tackled what he called the "crisis" of Filipino families as policymakers and legislators renew calls to arrest the country's population growth in order to avert a rice shortage.

The bishop did not cite specific corruption issues in the Arroyo administration, but said government leaders "must instead exert more institutional policies and political will" to deliver basic social services, ensure the land tenure of farmers, spend more public resources on agricultural production and raise wages.

He called House Bill No. 17 "disastrous," lamenting that it was following the "wrong stand" of the United Nations.

The bill, called the "Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood and Population Development Act of 2007," has been pending in the House committee on health since July 2007. Its principal author is Albay Representative Edcel Lagman.

"The proponents say it is for reproductive health and for the freedom of women. When substances poison [the] body of a woman or kill a baby, that is not healthy, that is not freedom. That is death," Aniceto said.

He cited a recent encounter with a woman who confided to him that she bled when she took pills.

"Families should not be told to resort to artificial contraceptives to stop population growth and have lesser mouths to feed. They don't understand that the poor have more children because they help in the farm and they will take care of their parents in old age," Aniceto said.

He said the government's food security program "must not kill families but should focus on giving lands and support for farmers and workers."

A "culture of life" should be the policy adopted amid the tight rice supply and high prices of food, he said.

Lagman had recently said the population growth rate of 2.36 percent "outpaces" the annual growth in rice production of 1.9 percent recorded from 1990 to 2000.

"The country's inordinately huge population growth rate threatens food security and aggravates the looming rice shortage," Lagman said in a statement.

"The politics of rice is a numbers' game -- the number of mouths to feed and the number on the price tag," he said.

The Philippines' population in 2007 was pegged at 88.7 million, and is projected to reach 90.4 million in 2008.

Rafael Mariano, chair of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines) and president of the Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) party-list, said the "rice crisis cannot be solved easily by increased rice importation and by pouring money on agriculture."

In a statement, Mariano warned that the "second wave of the rice crisis will be felt by July and will last for three years" because palay prices are still low and government funds are lost to graft.