THE Philippines must make the difficult choices and put in the work now to grow the economy by as much as 8 percent annually in two decades to significantly improve the income of Filipinos, according to the country’s Socioeconomic Planning Secretary.
In a recent University of the Philippines Alumni Council Meeting, National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said the economy must grow 6.5 percent to 8 percent annually for the next 20 years to make the economy less inequitable.
Balisacan said this goal should be driven by significant investments in infrastructure and emerging industries in the medium term. Significant investments would help sectors such as agribusiness, mining, tourism, manufacturing, education, creatives, health, and IT-BPM to drive the economy and create jobs.
“We should have made such investments decades ago. While we are certainly feeling the effects of our neglect, there is no other choice but to make the difficult choices and put in the work now,” Balisacan said.
“We must take two (even three) steps forward, even as other forces— populism and political expediency—take us one step backward,” he stressed.
Balisacan said this urgency underpins the Marcos Jr. administration’s investment in its infrastructure flagship program. The program, which covers 194 big-ticket projects, amounts to about P8.3 trillion.
The projects, he said, seek to support physical connectivity to enable access to economic opportunities, water resources to support the growing needs of the population and industry, as well as improve adaptation to climate risks; and agriculture as the cornerstone of our country’s food security.
Balisacan said the administration will strive to complete as many IFPs during the President’s term. The Neda was designated by Marcos Jr. to “monitor the progress of these projects and ensure that agencies are accountable for the delays in project delivery.”
Human capital
Meanwhile, the administration is also making investments that seek to improve human capital by increasing Filipinos’ “income-earning ability.”
This means making investments to improve education and promote lifelong learning; boost health; and ensure food security and proper nutrition. These have been identified in the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2023-2028.
In terms of education, Balisacan said, effort must be exerted in recovering learning losses. He noted that Filipino “children consistently lag in the most fundamental cognitive tasks.”
Based on data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) in 2022, the learning poverty in the Philippines is 90.9 percent. Learning poverty refers to the proportion of 10-year-old children in and out of school who cannot read a simple text.
The same data also showed learning deprivation in the country was at 90.4 percent. This refers to the share of children in school who have below minimum proficiency in reading.
Further, schooling deprivation in the Philippines was at 5 percent. This data refers to the share of primary age children who are out of school.
“The prospect of witnessing the effects of our educational deficits later on—when the children enter the labor force and labor-saving technologies such as artificial intelligence may have evolved in ways we have not yet even imagined—is quite disturbing,” Balisacan said.
In order to address this, programs and projects that align and match the needs of the private sector and industry with skills and competencies being developed in educational institutions are vital.
These institutions include basic education as well as technical, and vocational educational training (TVET) and higher education in institutions such as UP, the country’s national university.
“Our education sector must be able to develop processes and spearhead initiatives that will allow our citizens to quickly adapt and respond to emerging trends in the labor market,” Balisacan said.
“We must address learning losses and improve global competitiveness, as we must not stay caught up and remain insulated from the rest of the world,” he added.
In terms of health, Balisacan said the pandemic highlighted the need to “equitably distribute health infrastructure and human resources and promote health-seeking behavior and health literacy.”
Balisacan said there is a need for efforts to enhance the government’s capacities for public health emergencies both at the national and local levels.
Another important consideration in health is food security. Balisacan said better nutrition outcomes should be the “broader objective” of food security.
There is a need, he said, to expand “consumers’ access to affordable, safe, and nutritious food through investments in our food systems, including agricultural production, transport, and logistics.”