|
|
THURSDAY / 16 NOVEMBER 2017
|
IN FOCUS: Human capital development
Human capital is a key driver of inclusive growth. As such, countries around the world are recognizing the value of investing in education to harness the skills and competencies of their population and meet the demands of their respective labor markets.
The Philippines, however, has been facing several issues related to its efforts to develop its human capital. For instance, Dante Canlas, a research consultant at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), found that the country suffers from a low proportion of enrollees and graduates in higher and scientific education. In particular, he attributed this to the inability of Filipino families, especially the poor, to accumulate funds to finance college education. Given that a stock of highly educated and scientific workforce is critical for technological progress, Canlas urged the government to increase the budget allocation for tertiary education and design student loans and other financial aid programs that can help families send their children to school.
In 2016, PIDS Research Consultant Denise Valerie Silfverberg and Senior Research Fellow Aniceto C. Orbeta Jr., assessed one of these financial aid programs—the Students Grants-in-Aid Program for Poverty Alleviation (SGP-PA). They found that it can help poor students access higher education. They also identified two important unique features of the program, which include its targeting mechanism that focuses on the beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and the sufficiency of its assistance to cover all normal education expenses.
However, Silfverberg and Orbeta still raised the need to improve the SGP-PA, especially in terms of its coverage. For instance, their study showed that additional school expenses, which are still required for the grantees to complete their degrees, such as summer courses, on-the-job trainings, national competency exams, field trips, and thesis completion, are not covered by the grant. Moreover, the program only covers four years of education, which means that those who are pursuing five-year courses will still have to shoulder the expenses in the final year.
In another study, PIDS researcher Victoria Catibog also noted fiscal issues regarding the Student Financial Assistance Programs (StuFAPs) of the government. Among others, she said that the STuFAPs, which cover public scholarships, grants-in-aid, and student loans, do not fit well with national schedules in terms of fund release. For one, the fiscal year (January to December) of the program and the academic year (June to May) are not in synced. As a result, stipends and other entitlements of grantees are adversely affected. Catibog recommended the creation of a scholarship trust fund to which releases from the national budget for STuFAPs will be transferred. Such recommendation, according to her, will solve the problems caused by a nonsynchronized fiscal and academic year.
Recently, the Duterte administration signed into law the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, which grants full tuition subsidy to students of state universities and colleges. While the said policy looks appealing, Orbeta and Vicente Paqueo, PIDS research fellows, found in their study that it can do more harm than good for several reasons. For instance, the said law is antipoor as it can tilt the enrollment in favor of the rich households. As tuition is just a fraction of the total cost of higher education, only students from rich households will likely benefit from this law because they are the ones who have the resources to finance the rest of the college education cost.
As an alternative, Orbeta and Paqueo recommended increasing the budget allotted to the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education signed into law in 2014. According to them, the said system has ample avenues to democratize access to tertiary education as it rationalizes the allocation, utilization, and client targeting of government resources. Their recommendation was consistent with the views of the country’s economic managers who also argued against the free tuition fee proposal.
Another government initiative proven to be effective in advancing human capital formation in the country is the 4Ps. Orbeta and Paqueo, in another study, found that the program has kept Filipino children in school as it helps increase the household budget for education. Moreover, they noted that the abolition or the scaling down of the program would probably have damaging unintended consequences on the present and future welfare of poor children.
To learn more about these topics, you may access the following publications as well as related studies from the PIDS website and the Socioeconomic Research Portal for the Philippines. Simply type the relevant keywords in the Search box.
|
November 20, 2017, 9–12NN
Beyond ASEAN @50: Opportunities and Challenges for Regional Integration
Venue: Silliman University, Dumaguete City
November 23, 2017, 1–5PM
Asia-Pacific Forum 2017: Public Symposium on Integration and Inclusiveness in a Digital Society
Venue: Marco Polo Ortigas,
Pasig City
December 13, 2017, 10–12NN
Inauguration of PIDS Corner in Sorsogon
Venue: Sorsogon State College, Sorsogon City
December 13, 2017,1–5PM
Seminar-Forum on Perspectives on Federalism for Regional Development
Venue: Sorsogon State College, Sorsogon City
The PIDS Corner is the Institute’s knowledge dissemination strategy aimed at making its research outputs more visible and accessible in the provinces. It showcases various studies and publications of PIDS through the years, which researchers, students, faculty members, and local decisionmakers can access for free.
CLICK HERE to know more about the PIDS Corners.
.jpg)
The Philippine Journal of Development
is a professional journal published by the Philippine Institute for
Development Studies. It accepts papers that examine key issues in
development and have strong relevance to policy development. As a
multidisciplinary social science journal, it accepts papers in the
fields of economics, political science, public administration,
sociology, and other related disciplines. It considers papers that have
strong policy implications on national or international concerns,
particularly development issues in the Asia-Pacific region.
CLICK HERE for the guidelines in the preparation of articles. Submissions and inquiries may be sent to PJD@mail.pids.gov.ph |
|
|
JOURNAL
Philippine Journal of Development 2016, Vol. 43, No. 1
byVarious authors
This volume consists of articles on agriculture, the oil industry, and telecommunications. The first article studies the employment generation potential of the rice value chain in M'lang, North Cotabato. The second article focuses on the policies, problems, and priorities of the fertilizer industry in the Philippines. The third article evaluates the impact of oil price shocks on a developing and a net oil-importing economy like the Philippines. The last article on Philippine telecommunications laws and regulations examines the regulatory and policy reforms needed in order for the Philippines to quality for emerging trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Click here for the electronic copy of the journal.
POLICY NOTES
PN 2017-19:
Design Issues of the Philippine Agricultural Insurance Programs
by Celia M. Reyes and Christian D. Mina
Several bills filed in the Philippine Congress have already proposed amendments in the charter of the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC) to improve its products and services. These proposals, however, do not cover key design issues that also merit the attention of policymakers. This Policy Note summarizes these design issues based on a PIDS study on agricultural insurance programs. The study finds, among others, that the PCIC insurance is serving more as a credit risk reduction tool by design than a risk mitigation tool. It also reveals that the amount of insurance cover is insufficient to cover the total cost of production inputs, at least for rice and corn. To address these issues, the study urges the PCIC to encourage farmers, particularly those financially able ones, to pay for an additional amount of cover for their insured commodities. It also recommends the strengthening of its partnership with local governments, which can provide additional financing to pay for the additional premium to increase insurance cover. Click here for the full article.
PN 2017-18:
Toward an Adaptive Social Protection in the Philippines
by Connie B. Dacuycuy and Lora Kryz C. Baje
Due to its geographic location, the Philippines is vulnerable to disasters, such as tropical cyclones and storm surges. As such, the adoption of an adaptive social protection (ASP), which intersects social protection (SP), climate change adaptation, and disaster risk reduction, is necessary to ensure the success of SP and poverty reduction efforts in the country. This Policy Note investigates the concept of ASP and recommends applicable measures to make the existing SP programs in the Philippines become more adaptive. It finds that some existing programs, such as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program under the Department of Social Welfare and Development, can already serve as good starting points to promote ASP in the country. Given that ASP is a relatively new concept and very few studies have thus far documented its effectiveness, the study also recommends the documentation of good practices in other countries to strengthen our knowledge base concerning ASP. Click here for the full article. |
|
 Formalize regulation for Aussie BPOs in PH, PIDS urges gov't
The Philippines should formalize its regulatory management system (RMS) for the business process outsourcing industry to make it more investor-friendly, particularly for Australian businesses.
This, according to Dr. Gilberto Llanto, president of state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies, is a crucial aspect to uncover regulations that unnecessarily burden firms and only contribute to increasing the cost of doing business in the country. “The Philippines has the elements of a functioning RMS but has to do more serious work to make it formal and effective,” Llanto explained in his opening remarks during the Conference on Regulation and Governance in the Philippines: Development Policy Challenges for the New Administration held in Pasig City recently. READ MORE
|
 Multiactor participation, good governance, and technological innovation can improve regulations – experts
The regulatory process to effectively work entails the participation of different actors—not just government.
Prof. Sharon Friel, director of the School of Regulation and Global Governance of the Australian National University (ANU), made this point at the panel session on global standards and regulation in key sectors in a conference last October 23-24 jointly organized by ANU and state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
READ MORE
|
 Low awareness among Pinoys, a major bottleneck in PH competition policy
Two years after the ratification of the Philippine Competition Act, Filipinos still have low awareness of the importance of competition in the market.
This was revealed by Commissioner Stella Quimbo of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) in a recent forum on regulation and governance jointly organized by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and the Australian National University.
According to Quimbo, “very few people actually have an appreciation for competition concerns.” In a 2017 awareness survey conducted by the PCC with a sample of 1,200 respondents, Quimbo said “76 percent agreed that price fixing is unfavorable while 74 percent wrongly believed that when competitors divide the market into territories, consumers benefit.”
READ MORE
|
 PIDS, Australian university lead forum to reinforce political, economic regulations in PH
Regulation has to be a means to an end.
This was stressed by Professor Sharon Friel of the Australian National University (ANU) at the recently held Manila Conference 2017, a two-day event co-organized by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and ANU.
The conference, which carried the theme “Regulation and Governance in the Philippines: Development Policy Challenges for the New Administration”, aimed to tackle the present state of regulation in the Philippines and identify current regulatory barriers to growth of major industries in the country. READ MORE
|
 Gov't regulations must uphold human rights – experts
Experts at the recently concluded conference on regulation and governance in the Philippines, organized by state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies and Canberra-based Australian National University (ANU), highlighted the importance of having responsive regulations that respect human rights.
In her presentation on the regulatory rights of citizens in the 21st century, Prof. Veronica Taylor of ANU, emphasized that having responsive regulation that respects human rights is everybody’s business, stressing that civil society organizations, the business sector, and other nongovernment stakeholders should work together to ensure that nobody’s right is violated. READ MORE
|
 Lack of infra, burdensome procedures among barriers to ASEAN economic integration – experts
International experts identify inadequate physical facilities, cumbersome procedures, and varying international business standards as major stumbling blocks in sustaining the free flow of goods in ASEAN countries.
These barriers, they say, can adversely affect ASEAN’s goal of a cohesive, competitive, and robust economic environment among its member-states. READ MORE
|
 PIDS joins research forum on federalism in Zamboanga
The Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), in collaboration with the Mindanao Development Authority and the Ateneo de Zamboanga University, held a federalism research forum in Zamboanga City on September 7.
The event, which carries the theme “Federalism as Policy Option for a Decentralized Inclusive Development: A Critical Inquiry”, is the first policy forum lined up for the 15th Development Policy Research Month, an annual celebration led by PIDS every September to promote the importance of evidence-based policy research in program planning and policymaking. READ MORE
|
Employment program for students costly with little impact on education,
employability – study
The Special Program for the Employment of Students (SPES) of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) is costly but with minimal impact on education and employability to its beneficiaries.
This was according to an impact evaluation study conducted by Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a nonprofit policy research organization, to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. The SPES is an employment bridging program of the DOLE that aims to augment the income of poor but deserving students, out-of-school youths , or dependents of displaced workers who intend to finish education. READ MORE |
 ASEAN praised for instigating success in the region
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has significantly helped its member-states achieved economic progress, a Vietnamese senior economic official said.
At the Public Symposium on Economic Integration and Nation Building held in Manila recently, Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, former vice-president and a senior expert of the Central Institute for Economic Management of Viet Nam, praised ASEAN for pushing its member-states to aim for sustainability, inclusiveness, and innovation. The symposium is one of the commemorative outreach activities organized by state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies and Jakarta-based Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia to celebrate ASEAN’s 50th anniversary this year. READ MORE |
 Good governance, eased regulations key to AEC 2015 – expert
To achieve the goals of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) 2025, ASEAN member-states should strive to achieve an environment where good governance prevails so that micro, small, and medium enterprises can thrive. This was emphasized by Sri Datuk Dr. Rebecca Sta. Maria during a public symposium on ASEAN Economic Integration and Nation Building held recently at the Marco Polo Hotel in Ortigas.
The event, which aimed at highlighting the opportunities and challenges in building the AEC, was organized by state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies and Jakarta-based Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia support of the 50th founding anniversary of the ASEAN. READ MORE |
 Experts on federalism in PH: There are no 'quick fixes'
The Philippines has made some progress in decentralizing powers to local government units, but the government needs to do more.
This was what international experts agreed during the Third Annual Public Policy Conference organized by the state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies held recently at the Marco Polo Hotel as part of the observance of the Development Policy Research Month.
“The Philippines is easily one of the most decentralized countries already within Southeast Asia, far more decentralized than federal Malaysia,” Australian National University Professor Paul Hutchcroft said.
READ MORE |
Need help? Have feedback? Feel free to contact us.
If you do not want to receive PIDS Updates, click here.
© 2017 Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
 
|
|
