Regional Conference on

Policy Evaluation Research of the

Philippine Population Management Program

20 May 2003

Cebu Midtown Hotel

Cebu City

I.Preliminaries

The Invocation and the singing of the Philippine National Anthem was led by Ms. Gina Salvador of POPCOM Region VII.

This was followed by the Welcome Remarks of POPCOM Executive Director, Mr. Tomas M. Osias.

  1. welcome remarks of mr. tomas m. osias, executive director, popcom

Good morning, and let me welcome all of you to this very timely Research Utilization Workshop on Policy Evaluation of the Philippine Population Management Program. I am saying very timely because even the president of the Philippines Pres. Gloria M. Arroyo is joining the debate about population and reproductive health. Let us just watch what would happen to that debate.

It has been our experience that in conducting an intellectual type of activity such as this research utilization workshop, the most difficult process is the selection of the right mix of participants from the presenters, discussants, resource persons and reactors. With the intriguing concerns on population program, we feel that you are the best mix of participants who will work lively and lovely, for the next six hours or so, to further enrich the two studies. So, at this juncture let me acknowledge our very able presenters: Dr. Alex Herrin and Dr. Babes Orbeta; our partner from PIDS: Dr. Llanto and Mr. Feranil, and of course, the very able staff of PIDS; our host region headed by the Chair of the Regional Population Council, Atty. Adolfo and of course, our very own officer-in-charge of Region 7, Merlyn Rodriguez; our distinguished discussants: of course we have Prof. Logarta, Ms. Avila, Hon. Asirit, Dr. Fernandez and Dr. Zosa; and our friends from government and non-government organizations, academe, private sector; and our friends from the media.

We have two important topics to discuss in this workshop:

  • First is the paper of Dr. Alejandro Herrin, on “Population Policy and Program Monitoring and Evaluation”. Dr. Herrin will present to us the historical account of the PPMP and POPCOM as an organization. He will discuss with us how the population program evolved from a forceful to not so forceful program, and to no force at all program. Then the attachment of POPCOM from the Office of the President, to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, to NEDA and now, based on the EO 188, we are now attached with the Department of Health. It was only issued very recently and I would like to request Dr. Herrin to include in his study the implications of EO 188 – both programmatically and organizationally. Dr. Herrin will also include in his presentation the population expenditures which will show the sources and application of funds and to some extent will also highlight why the government is not allocating money for family planning commodities. So that is one big challenge of the program and I think it is really very important for us to appreciate that up to now the Philippine government failed to allocate funds for family planning commodities. And maybe at the end of this presentation, we can clearly see the picture why we are now 82 million; we are now 13th rank in the world in terms of population and 8th in Asia; we are one of the highest population growth rate in Asia at 2.36. We will double in 29 years with high total fertility rate (tfr) is 3.7, low contraceptive prevalence rate (cpr), high maternal mortality rate (mmr), high infant mortality rate (imr), high child mortality rate (cmr), and on top of these, we also have increasing teenage pregnancies as evidenced by the research studies of UPPI and other academic institutions.
  • From there we will be discussing the paper of Dr. Babes Orbeta on “Population, Poverty and Development: Review and Research Gaps” and this will articulate on the interconnectedness of family size and poverty and will show to us three important channels and these are: growth, distribution and conversion. This will also explain the reasons why we have this poverty incidence in relation to employment rate, income inequality, access to health, education and other social services.

So those are the two topics that we will discuss in this workshop and after that workshop we are hoping that we can come up with recommendations that will further enrich these studies. I would just like to request PIDS that after these two studies they might want to have follow through activities and there are two areas that I would like to recommend to them - these are Population and Environment; and Population, Urbanization and Local Governance - because POPCOM feels that these are the two very important concerns that we need to look into so that we can come up with appropriate policy and program interventions. I am very proud to announce to each and everyone of you that we consider PIDS as our brain bank because of all those empirical evidences that are helping us to really come up with appropriate interventions on policy and program about population and health.

To each and everyone of you, I would just like to appeal that as we leave this room after this workshop, let us all reinvigorate our commitments in ensuring the sustainability of the Population and Reproductive Health Program in our country and contribute in improving the quality of life of all Filipinos. Maybe, we would welcome to be infected with the new meaning of SARS, or the other meaning of SARS: sincere, admirable, responsible servants!

Maraming salamat po!

  1. opening remarks of dr. gilberto m. llanto, vice-president, pids

Good morning to all! Well, Tom, maybe after hearing this you will also think of PIDS as SARS. Tom characterized us as a brain bank. We used to think of ourselves as the government’s “think tank” being an attached agency of the NEDA. Anyway, I have the pleasant task of delivering this very short opening remarks. I purposely threw away the kilometric speech prepared for me in favor of a more candid and “off-the-cuff” remark just to set the tone and make this a very warm and informal gathering so that during the day we would have an open and candid discussion. According to Tom, we are looking at a very important issue before us and this population policy won’t go away. But we would have to listen to Dr. Herrin and Dr. Orbeta about it.

I would like first to introduce the PIDS to you because maybe the PIDS (Philippine Institute for Development Studies) is not that too familiar. We have given you this brochure and I would just call your attention to the page behind first page where you have the goals of the PIDS. It is really to provide socio-economic analyses and research so that our policymakers would have the necessary inputs. There’s no substitute to informed policy decisions, and that’s the main reason for the existence of PIDS. Through the years, we have been in existence for 25 years, we were a “martial law baby” of sorts but I assure you it’s one of the better decisions made by the former president. For 25 years we have provided the government inputs on policy making. But not only that, we have recently tried to work out with the legislators what we call a project named “Electronic Resource Base for Legislation Project”. The reason for all these is that, we thought that intelligent policymaking would depend on the quality of the research and the quality of the information provided.

So, we would like to welcome you to our websites which you find in your handouts where you can just, at the click of a mouse, get to the latest policy notes. We have the smallest notes here which attempts to discuss so-called raging issues of the day. We also have our database, the socio-economic research portal and (what I have mentioned earlier) the electronic resource base for legislation project. So, that, in brief, is what PIDS is all about. We produce the research but we also try to bring the research results to the regions – to the public - in terms of seminars, workshops and conferences like this. We have an outreach program as mentioned to you before, this is the second of a series, after Cagayan de Oro, on this particular topic. From here, we are going to Palawan and most probably Baguio in the near future also to discuss and disseminate the research findings. As you note, we work with the best researchers and analysts in the country – Dr. Herrin and Dr. Orbeta. But I should not forget to mention my classmate in graduate school, Dr. Zosa who is also working with PIDS. Of course, she is one of the youngest in our class of about 50. Only 7 or 6 of us managed to make it to the graduate program, PhD.

The second point I want to make, as has been mentioned by Tom, which is to ask us what has happened to the population policy and what has happened to the population program of the government. In today’s column, Mr. Fajardo noted kindly noted this conference that we will be undertaking. He also noted in his column that in the 70’s the population growth rate was 3%, if I’m not mistaken; and he said that today it’s a commendable fete that by today we have 2.3% growth rate. But he also posed a question of “why have we languished”, so to speak, “at this level?” He was comparing the growth rate of the Philippine population with those of other countries. What I could mention though is that Tom said that we have a population of 82 million and we are 13th rank-wise among nations of the world. Well, at least we are rank 13 in terms of competitiveness we are in the bottom hip, together with Bangladesh. So, we are 13 in population but in terms of competitiveness we are at a much lower rank. I don’t know if that’s commendable. But anyway, the presentation of Alex and Babes would explain to us what has happened along the way. At the same time, (this is an off-the-cuff comment) Dr. Zosa mentioned to me before we opened the conference that “so much focus has been given on fertility”. When we talk of population policy that’s a very narrow focus. That’s why we get these heated debates on what methods we should use. I gather that Dr. Herrin would take us to a broader perspective of population policy that should be understood in a more wholistic sense. But I should not steal the thunder from him otherwise he would have no reason for staying here.

The last point I want to make is this paper by my good friend, Dr. Orbeta. I’m glad that Tom mentioned interconnectedness. The topic is population, poverty and sustainable development Tom mentioned the interconnectedness between family size, poverty and sustainable development because this is also a cause of debate and discussion in the profession. Some people would want to catch this in terms of causation – that there’s some causality between population policy, family size and poverty. Maybe he is using a politically correct term – interconnectedness – but let’s hear from Dr. Orbeta what he means when he said he wants to review what has happened so far and point out the research gaps - so, is it to relate poverty incidence with family size. But I think it’s more than that as you would learn as the day proceeds.

With this I would like to end this opening remarks. I’m doing this in behalf of our president, Dr. Mario Lamberte, who couldn’t be here today with you. I hope that the presence of Mr. Feranil, Dr. Herrin, Dr. Orbeta, myself and the rest of the PIDS staff will underscore the strong support we are giving to research on population policy and programs. I hear loud and clear Tom’s request for PIDS to focus on population and environment; and population decentralization and local governance which I think are two very important issues. And I also heard, he whispered to me, that there’ll be funding for this research. Thank you very much, Tom. With that I am sorry to leave this early but I am sure you are in the caring hands of Dr. Herrin and Dr. Orbeta. Thank you and good day!

  1. introduction of speakers by mr. mario feranil (pids director for project services and development)

Maayong buntag sa inyong tanan! Dr. Llanto and Mr. Osias told us the importance of the issue of population in this country. This is the reason why PIDS and POPCOM have agreed to undertake this project on population.

For this undertaking, we have commissioned two of the best persons that the academic and research communities could offer. These are Dr. Alejandro Herrin and Dr. Aniceto Orbeta. Since the problem of population is heavy and deep, we at PIDS saw to it that our researchers are Visayans.

As an economist, Dr. Herrin has been deeply involved in the conduct of studies and analyses in the field of demographic economics. He has published both locally and internationally numerous studies that dealt with population and its various dimensions. In recognition of his outstanding work on this area, Dr. Herrin was granted in 1992 the Outstanding Young Scientist Award by the National Academy of Science and Technology. This award was given for research in demographic economics. In 1996, he also received the Rafael M. Salas Population and Development Award. In 1998, his alma mater, Xavier University presented him with the Outstanding Alumni Award.

After obtaining his PhD in Economics from the University of South Carolina in 1972, Dr. Herrin returned to Xavier University to teach and undertake research in economics and eventually became the Chairman of the Department of Economics of the school. He then joined the School of Economics at the University of the Philippines in 1978 where he is presently a professor in Economics. In 1988, Dr. Herrin was a visiting research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (pids).

Dr. Orbeta, is a senior research fellow of PIDS and is an economist specializing in applied economic modeling, social sector issues, and demographic economics. Babes, as he is popularly known, has numerous local and international publications that not only focused on issues in the Philippines but also covered other countries such as Mongolia and Egypt.

Dr. Orbeta obtained his masters and PhD in Economics from the University of the Philippines, 1983 and 1992, respectively. He did post-doctoral work at Harvard University in 1997.

Under the PIDS-POPCOM project, Dr. Herrin and Dr. Orbeta, evaluated the policies and programs and the researches related to population program in the context of the overall development goals of the country. This is the reason why PIDS and POPCOM are here. Since the research had been completed, it is only fitting that we disseminate the results of their analysis as well as their recommendations.

The first speaker will be Dr. Herrin who will be presenting the results of their evaluation of Philippine population policies and programs in recent years. He will be followed by Dr. Orbeta who would be giving us a review of research studies focusing on the linkages between population, development and poverty.

Ladies and gentlemen, our first speaker Dr. Alejandro Herrin.

II.Research Presentation I

  1. presentation of the study of dr. herrin “population policy and program evaluation”

The title of my part of the presentation is “Population Policy and Program Monitoring and Evaluation”. And I added the term ‘Monitoring’ because this, I think, an important component of what I think POPCOM should be doing and how we should be looking at policy and program. This particular presentation is based on several studies that we have done recently. One, is the review of population policy itself which we did during the first phase of the project and the review of population program which was done by Babes Orbeta. In addition to that, recently Dr. Racelis and myself have also estimated total expenditures in the population program. This includes not only the expenditures of government both national and local but also the private sector – particularly households – and of course, the contributions of donors and the role of NGOs in the program. All of these will put together in a paper that’s still in progress, and that is, the “Evaluation of the Philippine Population Management Program”. Many of the data that is contained in that paper is what we will present also in this presentation. So, it’s really the summary of various sets of studies – the highlights.

We will try to divide the morning’s presentation into three parts. The first part will be a quick review of population policy and program with attention to population growth and family planning. Dr. Llanto a while ago said that perhaps we might be looking at population policy in a narrow sense – looking only at fertility. That’s true, I think we should broaden our perspective on population policy but at the same time we should not forget about one aspect of that that has caused a lot of controversy since 1970s. And so, while we try to broaden our understanding of population dynamics, we also need to look at this particular aspect of population policy and why we don’t seem to be getting anywhere in that area. Whereas in other countries this is no longer an issue because they have already done what needs to be done and problems of population growth and high fertility is no longer a problem.