Low income is not the only thing that makes Filipinos poor, but also access to basic services, according to the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and Neda Director General Arsenio M. Balisacan said poor Filipinos are also poor because they lack access to basic services such as health and education.
Balisacan said this is the reason the national government is increasing its investments in education and health to achieve a trickle-down effect in these basic services.
“Our country has made a deliberate effort to substantially increase spending for health and education, including the Conditional Cash-Transfer Program,” Balisacan said at a recent World Bank high-level panel on Shared Prosperity, Inequality and Poverty in East Asia and Pacific.
“Our current fiscal space, which is a direct result of our institutional reforms, has allowed us to channel resources into human capital and support social-protection programs,” he added.
These efforts, Balisacan said, include those that seek to improve the skills of the Filipino work force in a way that will allow them to be more responsive to the changing times.
Balisacan said the current labor market is rapidly changing, and this requires workers to have advanced technological skills for them to take advantage of unique opportunities.
He cited the impact of technologies, which changed the mix of jobs and required better quality of education and skill content from the labor force.
“A much easier and faster way of addressing inequality is mobility and enhanced capacity of people to choose any sector or location of employment.
This is why education is such a powerful equalizer. It explains why Filipinos are everywhere. When they can’t find opportunities near them, they move elsewhere if they have human capital,” Balisacan said.
These interventions, Balisacan said, are also in accordance with the efforts to prepare for the Asean Economic Community (AEC). The deadline to meet the commitments for the AEC is in December 2015 and its implementation is on January 1, 2016.
Balisacan said interventions like these and increased investments in infrastructure have improved the Philippines’s latest rankings on competitiveness and ease of doing business.
“By increasing it from about 2 percent of GDP [gross domestic product] in 2012, to 5 percent by 2016, we are addressing one of the country’s biggest constraints to development and opening up for a bigger market,” Balisacan said.
The World Bank session discussed how countries in developing East Asia and the Pacific can address the challenges of promoting shared prosperity, reducing inequality and eliminating poverty and the lessons they can use from their past successes.