Medium chance for government to attain development goals

Louise Maureen Simeon (The Philippine Star ) – 22 Jul 2021

MANILA, Philippines — The government has only a medium chance of achieving its development goals once President Duterte steps down from office next year.

According to the latest Statistical Indicators on Philippine Development of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the chance of attaining the targets of the six-year Philippine Development Plan (PDP) is medium and, thus, the target may or may not be achieved.

StatDev covers 300 indicators of the 14 PDP sectoral chapters. Of these, 141 showed low likelihood of achieving the targets, 33 had medium likelihood while 126 had high likelihood.

Of the 14 sectors, four have low chance, seven have medium, and only three have high chance of reaching the targets.

Based on the latest StatDev, the government may not likely achieve targets on science and technology; social protection; agriculture, forestry and fisheries; and shelter and housing.

In agriculture, out of 12 major commodities, only sugarcane and abaca posted medium likelihoods, while the rest had low likelihoods of achieving their target yield.

Due to the travel and mass gathering restrictions because of the pandemic, the PSA said the number of small farmer fisherfolk organizations that participated in institutional capacity building on innovative financing was only 198, way below the target of 1,325.

For social protection, the number of deaths and the number of missing persons due to natural and human-induced disasters was recorded at 257 and 56, respectively, way far from the end-of-plan target of zero.

The number of overseas Filipino workers also declined last year while the percentage of population covered by social health insurance was only at 87 percent and short of the 100 percent full coverage target.

It should be noted, however, that an indicator with low likelihood of achieving the target does not necessarily mean that the end-of-plan target will not be met.

PSA said the likelihood serves as an indicator that the actual growth rate from the baseline to the latest data given the number of years elapsed is relatively low for the required growth rate from the baseline to the end-of-plan target given the number of years covered.

Meanwhile, the sectors which have a medium chance of target achievement are justice, macroeconomy, human capital development, demographic dividend, infrastructure, governance, and culture and values.

Specifically, the country’s criminal justice indicator is still behind targets, the number of higher education policies formulated to produce work-ready higher education graduates remains low, and youth unemployment has increased due to the pandemic.

In infrastructure, the target increase in renewable energy capacity is still low at 7,617 megawatts while significant loss was noted for both the international and domestic flights across the country.

The government will also have to deal with improving the corruption perceptions index and agencies’ compliance with the transparency seal.

On the upside, the Duterte administration has a high chance of achieving its PDP targets on environment, competitiveness, and industry and services.

PSA said the coverage of protected areas in relation to marine areas had exceeded its target, as well as the total accumulated area planted with mangroves since 2017.

In terms of competitiveness, the proportion of completed studies on competition law and economics of major academic and research institutions was almost thrice the target while the annual number of competition policy-related training programs for executive agencies also surpassed its goal.

For industry and services, the number of consumer awareness and advocacy initiatives and consumer education, information and communication materials also breached its target. Likewise, consumer complaints resolution rate exceeded its target.