How Trade Liberalization and Labor Development Could Coincide in the Philippines

As the world adapts to the rapid pace of globalization in the 21st century, countries ease trade restrictions by gradually removing tariffs and non-tariff barriers to incentivize the free flow of goods across nations. This prevalence of trade liberalization policies propelled policymakers and economists to investigate the relationship between trade reforms and economic outcomes including wage inequality around the world. They found that trade liberalization, on average, has had a positive impact on economic growth, but prior studies that examine the effects of trade liberalization on wage inequality in developing countries have found mixed results. Recently, Murakami (2021) examined the impact of trade liberalization on wage inequality in Chile through the reduction in effective tariffs brought about by the regional trade agreements of the country. Following his empirical strategy, we examine the impact of trade liberalization on wage inequality in the Philippines. In this policy brief, we provide insights on our findings and policy recommendations that the Philippines can undertak

The Effect of Conditional Cash Transfers on the Prepaid and Postpaid Expenditures of Internet and Cellular Services: The Case of Filipino Households

Technology has been playing a large role in the lives of households regardless of income. How, then, do poor families value the importance of internet and cellular services due to the existence of outcome-improving or outcome-worsening effects associated with these services? At the same time, since the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) substantially affects its beneficiaries’ household expenditures, assessing its effectiveness concerning its objectives is important. Most literature on how poor households spend their cash transfers is centered on directly linked goods such as health and education. However, the relationship between CCTs and expenditures on goods that play a more indirect yet increasing role in the lives of poor households (e.g., internet and cellular services) has yet to be explored. Using the 2018 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) with the 4Ps program serving as the treatment, a propensity score matching methodology is applied to compare beneficiaries’ expenditures on prepaid and postpaid internet and cellular services with non-beneficiaries via Average Treatment Effects on the Treated (ATT)

Evaluating the national volunteering through Bayanihang Bayan program

After 16 years of enactment, Presidential Memorandum Order (PMO) 45, Bayanihang Bayan Program (BBP) of the government that called for private sector participation in government service was opened for evaluation. Primarily, the evaluation wanted to know the result of the program at all levels focusing on relevance, efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. These were made possible by the conduct of key informant interviews and focused group discussions with key stakeholders of BBP implementing and non-implementing agencies and units. Five programs were carefully chosen for case study.Primary findings showed that volunteerism is something not hard to sell to Filipinos. As showed by the BBP cases there is a vast number of individuals who are either not aware of the opportunities or are just waiting to be tapped to participate in government services.Likewise, there is definitely room for private sector participation in the government. Some may not directly associate their initiatives to BBP, but basically are already implementing private-public partnership when it comes to government service. The challenge for the government is how to harness the supply of potential volunteers.Monitoring and evaluation is critical in program conceptualization, planning and implementation. Results cannot be documented, successes cannot be recognized, and failures cannot be improved without a monitoring and evaluation system. This is an area where both the PNVSCA and lgus/ngas are lacking.There is a need to rethink the role of PNVSCA as “promoter”. The enabling environment for PNVSCA to serve such role is lacking. Despite the presence of several laws, there is no “teeth” for PNVSCA to actively push the government to implement and monitor. Likewise, financial resources are limited

Collective action: The case of promoting integrity and accountability in small and medium enterprises

The Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the Philippine economy. They comprise 99.6% of the business, employ 63.2% of the labor force and contribute 35.7% of total sales and value added in the country. The SMEs are also the most prone sector to corruption. In the 2011-2012 World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report, it was cited that the most problematic factors for doing business in the Philippines is corruption. It has become normal to hear SMEs complain about public servants asking for grease money to facilitate transactions. It cannot also be discounted that corruption exists because there are SMEs that initiates them. This case study focuses on the initiative by the hills Program on Governance, Ramon V. del Rosario, Sr. - C.V. Starr Center for Corporate Governance of Asian Institute of Management. The initiative aims to strengthen awareness and understanding of the social and economic costs of corruption among Philippine businesses and to generate their support for anti-corruption efforts and to strengthen the ability of SMEs to prevent corrupt and other unethical behaviour among their employees. The initiatives is anchored on the fact that SMEs have an important role to play in combating corruption. They can either be victims, initiators or active participants against corruption. It highlights the importance of SMEs coming together for capacity building and consultation to formulate strategies for combating corruption in business. It likewise gives importance to the role of the government in SME development and promoting integrity and accountability in business

Towards women empowerment in the Philippine private higher education: A policy assessment on the institutionalization of Magna carta of women in the manual of regulation for private higher education

This paper looks into the institutionalization of Magna Carta of Women in the Manual of Regulation for Private Higher Education . Parts 1-4 will provide the contextualization of the women empowerment and the rationale for the integration in the Philippine private higher education. Part 5 will take a closer look at MCW and private higher education-related provisions as the codified law for women empowerment in the Philippines. Part 6 will see through MORPE and MCW-related provisions as the manual of regulations covering Philippine private higher education. Part 7 will look at the institutionalization of MCW to Private Higher Education. Part 8 will try to offer policy inputs and recommendations to CHED as the national government agencies overseeing the Philippine private higher education sector

Stocktaking of public services delivery tools and approaches

This stocktaking report was written by the Consultant for Stocktaking in order to consolidate the initiatives, tools, approaches and data gathering methods developed and utilized by civil society organizations (CSOs). Most of the initiatives were focused on the public service delivery of health, housing, and education in local areas. Initiatives that aim to improve transparency, accountability, and governance are also included in this stocktaking as these help improve, if not ensure, the delivery of public services. The consultant was able to document and analyze 29 tools from 24 initiatives. These were studied in terms of the approaches that were used, their inputs in the program or policy cycle of government, and their requirements in terms of time and human resources. Of the 24 initiatives, five were analyzed in depth through case studies. The section on Mechanisms and Applications provided an analysis of the initiatives and tools. The discussion is interspersed with examples and tables to illustrate the main points. The case studies, serving as annexes, provided details. The sections on stocktaking methodology and contextualization contribute to efforts at enhancing the understanding of social accountability and of monitoring and evaluation. For this report, the above-mentioned sections will enable readers to immediately understand the terms and concepts used in the paper. The section on conceptual framework provides a discussion of social accountability. Through its description and analysis of civil society initiatives and tools, this stocktaking adds to efforts at deepening and broadening the understanding of social accountability. Social accountability places the responsibility of exacting accountabilities in the hands of government and civil society. It is the premise by which will civil society - non-government organizations, academe-based organizations, and coalitions - endeavor to develop and implement monitoring and evaluation initiatives. It is also the premise by which government agencies - local government units and national government agencies - allow, and in many cases, welcome the monitoring and evaluation efforts of civil society