The country’s population is expected to balloon to 107.19 million by the end of 2018, based on projections made by the Commission on Population (Popcom).
“The population will increase by 1.8 million by the end of 2018, growing at a rate of 1.69 percent,” said Popcom executive director Juan Antonio Perez III in a statement.
“That means we will be adding 4,965 Filipinos a day, or 206 every hour in 2018,” he said.
The projections were made based on the Philippine Census of Population in 2015.
Popcom noted a big increase among women of reproductive age, with about 27.71 million. This figure marks an increase of over 400,000 from the previous year’s projection.
Filipinos aged above 60 are expected to be 8,013,059 by the end of 2018, or 0.23 percent more than the 2017 projection. A total of 5,082,049 will be aged 65 and older. —Tina G. Santos