Public policy (not the coronavirus) should shape what endemic means

Endemicity is not only a biological and health event but has several inter-dependencies cross-cutting with the management of the economy, including governance and policies. Within the context of the discourse on inequity, what does endemicity mean for poor and low-income families, where policies on social inclusion and social welfare need to be re-calibrated

Countering COVID-19: Cases in Crisis Response

The enormity of the COVID-19 pandemic urgently calls for a proactive and strategic response from across all sectors at all levels: global, national, and local. Countering COVID-19: Cases in Crisis Response, with its wide range of essays, makes the case for a coordinated and truly whole-of-society approach to contain, adapt to, and overcome the pandemic while laying bare preexisting systemic and structural inequalities. There is no other more critical time to confront these than now. Part-chronicle of an ongoing crisis and part-resource for policy analysis, the scope of this ad interim work is as vast as the national experience: from rural locales in BARMM and urban poor communities in Metro Manila to OFWs across the globe. As the pandemic has made clear, the “medical” is inseparable from the “cultural,” the “social,” the “environmental,” and the “political,” and the case studies in this book illuminate these intersections in ways that inform and challenge scholars, policy makers, and the public. —Gideon Lasco, author, The Philippines Is Not a Small Countr

Costing Populist Policies

In many countries were populism has taken hold, focus on quicker yet ultimately unsustainable policy shortcuts gave rise to canonical populism that has led to policy failure and crises. This note analyzes three policy cases in the Philippines which appear to reflect populist tendencies, defined simply by its redistributive yet potentially unsustainable characteristics. It aims to reveal not simply the cost of these policies, but also the need to think of structural and institutional reforms that address the root causes of the risks and challenges. Ultimately, populism appears to be trumped by evidence on policies that actually work more effectively

\u27Kontra-Partido\u27: Untangling Oppositional Local Politics and Healthcare Devolution in the Philippines

A long-recognized problem of healthcare devolution in many developing countries is its inextricability from the influences of local politics. This has been particularly self-evident in the Philippines, where, since the adoption of the Local Government Code of 1991, the devolution of health governance, planning, administration and service delivery has placed the health system largely under the control of individual provinces, cities, municipalities and villages or barangays. In this article, we utilize the notion of \u27kontra-partido\u27 (the Filipino term connoting \u27oppositional politics\u27) to concretize local, oppositional politics as a lived experience of health workers, government officials and ordinary citizens in the country. Through multi-sited qualitative fieldwork, we demonstrate how \u27kontra-partido\u27 politics ultimately worsens health outcomes in any locality. We show how such politics figures in the relational dynamics of health governance, often resulting in petty infighting and strained relationships among local health authorities; how it leads to the politicization of appointments and prevents the local workforce, especially those at the grassroots, from doing their jobs efficiently amid environments rife with hostile patronage; and how it impedes service delivery as politicians prioritize \u27visible\u27 projects (over sustainable ones) and selectively deliver health care to their known supporters. In turn, health workers and ordinary citizens alike have been actively negotiating their roles within this political milieu, either by joining the so-called political frontlines or by engaging in the transactional relationships that develop between politicians and their constituents during perennial election seasons. We conclude with a reflection on the vulnerability of health to politicization and the visceral consequences of \u27kontra-partido\u27 politics to health workers, as well as an identification of possible areas of intervention for future policy reform, given the deepening political polarization in the country and the upcoming implementation of the recently passed Universal Health Care Law

Including homeless families and children in the social protection system: a brief review of international experience and an analysis of data on the Philippine pilot programme

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Programme (4Ps) is one of the projects subsumed within the Philippine social protection agenda. The 4Ps, under the management of the Department of Social and Welfare and Development (DSWD), has covered over 7 million children belonging to approximately 3 million poor families with homes from the period February 2008 to May 2012. In an effort to extend social protection services to the homeless, the DSWD launched the Modified Conditional Cash Transfer for Homeless (MCCT-HSF) programme in the second half of 2012. The MCCT-HSF, viewed as an extension of the 4Ps, intends to provide immediate relief, support and services to homeless families. It is also designed as a mechanism through which homeless families can transition into the 4Ps. This study serves as a review of social protection programmes that are similar to the MCCT-HSF and as a preliminary analysis of the data gleaned from the pilot implementation of the MCCT-HSF. A review of the social protection programmes for the homeless of other countries suggests that the success of these kinds of programmes is contingent on the development of accurate integrated targeting, monitoring and delivery systems. Moreover, it has been observed that the construction of cost-effective transient housing facilities or temporary shelters, and the provision of personalized psychosocial counselling services are instrumental to the success of homeless protection programmes for the homeless. The data from the MCCT-HSF pilot implementation indicate that homeless families found in Metro Manila originate from poor regions that are close to the National Capital Region. The data set also reveals that most of the homeless included in the pilot implementation attained only an elementary-level education. A considerable proportion of the homeless is either unemployed or employed in the informal sector