P180B a year against poverty

IN order for the Philippines to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on poverty by 2015, the economic managers have estimated that public and private investments in the country need to increase by around P180 billion every year in the next five years.

National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Director General Dr. Cayetano Paderanga Jr., who is also the Socioeconomic Planning secretary, said increasing investments by this much will also complement the government’s aim of maintaining a 7-percent to 8-percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth starting next year.

One way of attaining this is through public-private partnerships (PPPs), particularly for infrastructure projects. These will help create jobs for millions of Filipinos, as well as address the country’s infrastructure constraints.

“The economic managers have come up with draft data, [which is] the reason for targeting the growth rate 7 percent to 8 percent, starting 2011. One of [the things we need to do] would be to increase overall investment by about P180 billion a year,” Paderanga said in a press briefing after the launch of the fourth MDG National Report on Wednesday in Makati City.

“We are hoping that we will be able to, among others, in terms of public investment, do two things. One, pair the public funds with private funds [through] PPP so that we’ll have a larger [and] magnified effect just on private facilities alone [and], second, with these public facilities, to be able to induce more private investment,” Paderanga explained.

Besides increasing investments, he said there is a need to improve the delivery of social services and institutionalize the conditional cash-transfer (CCT) program so that it will become part of the government’s budget onward.

The Neda chief also said regionalizing and localizing MDG achievements would also be crucial. This is the reason the country’s economic blueprint for the next six years, the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP), which is being currently being drafted by the Neda, will place an emphasis on regional development plans.

“We will ask them to see how these would impact the MDG goal and then to write the action plan in a way that addresses some of the information, content with regard to localization and regionalization. We hope that will [also] lead to an improvement in the delivery of services,” Paderanga added.

In order for the government to address regional and provincial constraints in achieving the goals and overall development, agencies like the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Department of Health (DOH) conducted needs assessments in the education and health sectors, respectively.

In the education sector, Education Undersecretary Alberto Muyot, for legal and legislative affairs, said preliminary data showed the Philippines need around 152,000 classrooms that will cost around P1.4 billion, to achieve a classroom ratio of 45 students per room. This will also end double and even triple shifting in schools.

Muyot added that there is a need to add around 103,000 additional teachers who will require around P17 billion worth of salaries every year to achieve the 1-teacher-per-45-student ratio. He said around 13 million seats would be needed, which will cost P12.8 billion. This will enable the country to achieve a ratio of 48 seats in every classroom. 

The DepEd official also said there is a need for an additional 151,000 sanitary facilities in public schools worth P10 billion. This means that the ratio of one toilet bowl for every 50 female users and one urinal for every 100 male users will be met.

“Let me just clarify that the study on curricular changes is still ongoing. It is not yet a decision on adding two years, but it’s really a review of the curriculum or how to enhance the curriculum to make it more effective in ensuring that the proper competency and skills of students in basic education are realized,” Muyot said.

“In the meantime, what the department is doing is to address the input shortages and classrooms, teachers, seats, textbooks, water and sanitation,” he added.

Meanwhile, on the health sector, Dr. Honorata Catibog, DOH National Center for Disease Prevention and Control Family Health Office director, said the agency conducted an assessment in relation to the achieving MDG-4, or reducing child mortality, and MDG-5, or reducing maternal mortality.

The preliminary data showed that in order to achieve MDG-4 and MDG-5, Catibog said the country needs an additional of around 2,500 emergency obstetric and neonatal-care facilities, and 166 comprehensive emergency obstetric and neonatal-care facilities, which will enable health professionals to conduct operations like Caesarean deliveries.

This upgrade of existing facilities, Catibog said, will cost around P4 billion. However, she said the Health department will need an additional budget of around P127 billion spread over a five-year period to meet the goals.

“In the strategic interventions adopted by the Department of Health, in line with the policy directions of improving maternal and child health, we have now three major interventions. One is strengthening family planning, another is skilled birth attendants and [the last] one is availability of emergency obstetric and neonatal services throughout the country,” Catibog said.

The fourth MDG report said that in 2006, poverty incidence in terms of population slightly went up to 32.9 percent. Income distribution across regions remain largely unequal, even worse than other Southeast Asian countries. The report also said that a significant proportion of the population has remained poor over the past 20 years.

In terms of education, from 2004 to 2009, a total of 75,584 new classrooms have been constructed and 52,536 new teacher items to address the demand in the public school system. However, due to poor targeting, shortages in pupil-classroom and pupil-teacher ratios persisted.

“This implies that the education system, given its current resources, might still not be ready to welcome and maintain a higher number of students,” the report stated.

In terms of infant mortality, the report said the rate already declined to 25 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2008 from 57 in 1990, while under-five mortality rate also declined to 34 in 2008 from 80 in 1990.

However, the report said child mortality is still relatively high in rural areas where women have no or little education and/or are poor.

The report said that in terms of maternal mortality, the country’s maternal-mortality ratio had been declining over the past two decades to 162 per 100,000 live births in 2006 from 172 in 1998 and 209 in 1993.

“It seems, though, that the rate of change is relatively low. This might be attributed to the fact that a significant proportion of births were still delivered at home and attended, not by skilled health professionals, but by the so-called hilot, especially in areas where health facilities with services of skilled health professionals are inaccessible,” the report stated. –Cai U. Ordinario / Reporter, Businessmirror