II. Issues and Challenges
Within the social sector, the following will have to be addressed during 1999-2004:
A. Health, Nutrition and Population Management
1. Improving the health status of the Filipinos through an integrated and unified health
care delivery system that is more dynamic, efficient, effective and responsive to devolution
in view of the following:
a. New emerging diseases and health risks remain unabated;
b. Ongoing threat of resurgence of some diseases;
c. Fragmentation of health care delivery system;
d. Deterioration of district health system;
e. Maldistribution of health resources and facilities, exacerbated by low morale of
devolved health personnel;
f. Inability of most LGUs to adequately deliver devolved health services; and
g. Overutilization of retained hospitals at all levels.
2. The need for health care financing reforms to address the following:
a. Low scope and coverage of the National Health Insurance Program (NHIP);
b. Mismatch between health needs and government expenditures;
c. Bigger expenditures for personal care rather than on public health care;
d. Operational management problems of NHIP such as delayed remittance
of contributions especially to the indigent program; and
e. Limited financial capabilities of LGUs to support NHIP.
3. Improving health regulatory system;
4. Making health services more affordable and accessible to the masses;
5. Reducing protein-energy malnutrition among children and chronic energy deficiency
among adults;
6. Addressing nutrition and nutrition-related degenerative diseases such as diabetes,
cancers and cardio-vascular diseases;
7. Reducing micronutrient deficiencies (e.g.,VAD, IDA and IDD) and monitoring
fortified foods;
8. Addressing the problem of easy availability of and increasing demand for illicit
drugs from domestic and foreign sources;
9. Achieving rational population growth and distribution defined in relation to availability
of resources and sustainable environment condition;
10. Providing a clear policy for developing responsible reproductive behavior
among adolescents;
11. Establishing a mechanism for financing and managing the growth of human settlement; and
12. Ensuring the rationality, availability and safety of drugs.
B. Education and training
General
1. Fine-tuning policies, strategies and programs towards reengineering the
governing agencies of the three levels of education
The foregoing assessment of the sector reveals some common strengths
and weaknesses across these levels. While quantitative gains were made to ensure greater
access, the key challenges lies in attaining efficiency in service delivery at the same
that quality of educational outcomes is substantially improved. The thrust of DECS to
decentralize educational management and empower field-level managers, therefore, needs to be sustained
and accelerated. There is also a need to improve the dynamism of other local
stakeholders particularly the existing local school boards. The full implementation of the program
reforms initiated in TVET is expected to help address these. However, in the light of the
growing global competition for human resource development, the governance of higher
education should be strengthened in the areas of development planning, resource allocation,
policy coordination and standard setting by continuing the structural reforms of CHED.
2. Reducing wide quality discrepancies between schools in urban and rural
areas; between public and private schools; and among clientele groups.
While gender disparities are not evident in basic education,
they do persist in higher levels. In addition, the incidence of low-quality
education is apparent in some regions and groups especially in the indigenous
communities. For instance, the average functional literacy rates in
some provinces of Mindanao such as Basilan, Tawi-tawi, Sulu, Lanao del
Sur, and Maguindanao are just a little over half the functional rates
of the top-performing provinces/regions
(Table 2.16).
3. Improving resource allocation through more efficient planning,
management and monitoring of programs and institutions, all of which have become
more complicated as a result of the trifocalization of the educational system.
Measures include resolving the administrative jurisdictions and supervising
functions of the three education agencies over schools and institutions based on clear delineation
of functions, programs and levels of training of education. This delineation should hasten
the restructuring of tertiary institutions into the major categories and functions as
recommended by the EDCOM.
Basic education
1. Addressing the backlogs in the basic needs of the school
system particularly facilities, teachers and instructional materials;
2. Enhancing school holding power;
3. Improving school outcomes including raising quality towards achieving
academic excellence;
4. Enhancing the relevance of existing curriculum; and
5. Improving administrative and
management systems to gear the bureaucracy for
decentralization and modernization.
Middle-level skills development
1. Developing an appropriate equivalency and accreditation system in all middle-level
skills areas within the framework of the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency
and Accreditation Program (ETEEAP). Establishing equivalency in this level of education
will not only improve access but also promote the upward mobility of workers in their career
and education paths;
2. Aggressively promoting middle level skills development (MLSD) as a viable option
for human resource development especially among the youth;
3. Addressing constraints on the expansion and improvement of private TVET, such as the
lack of access to credit markets and unfair competition by heavily subsidized public training providers;
4. Focusing enterprise-based training, revising the Apprenticeship Law and adopting
more flexible dual-system models;
5. Increasing the participation of the private sector in the management, delivery and financing
of MLSD; and
6. Accelerating the devolution of the management and implementation of
community-based skills development programs to local government units, civil society
and industry, whenever feasible.
Higher Education
1. Strengthening public and private HEIs identified as Centers of Excellence
(COEs)
and Centers of Development (CODs) in
nine clusters of disciplines;
2. Accelerating the restructuring and streamlining of public higher
education subsystem;
3. Imposing a moratorium on the
conversion into and creation of SUCs and rationalizing
funding allocation for the public higher education institutions;
4. Establishing a viable Quality Assurance System in higher education;
5. Developing innovative programs in higher education and alternative modes of delivery
of educational services;
6. Strengthening the research and extension functions of HEIs;
7. Raising maritime education standards to international standards, particularly the
1995 Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW'95); and
8. Raising the global competitiveness of HEIs.
Culture, arts and media
1. Promoting a culture of peace and unity and strengthening national identity in the age of
globalization; and
2. Developing a more determined and systematic protection and preservation of Filipino
cultural heritage, particularly those identified by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites and Monuments.
Sports
1. Focusing on mass-based and propoor sports development programs; and
2. Improving the system of coordination and management in the implementing machinery
and promoting harmony among major sports stakeholders.
C. Shelter and urban development
1. Establishing a legal framework and policy environment supportive of urban development
and housing concerns (e.g., explicit, functional urban policy, adequate land conversion
policies, mainstreaming of the sector in the development and budgeting processes, formulation of
a comprehensive Land and Water Use Code and Policy).
2. Addressing the continuously accelerating pressure on the public sector shelter delivery
system from population/household growth, which accounts for as much as 66 percent of
projected housing need for 1999-2004.
3. Reorienting the practice of clients particularly the urban poor towards government
services which are perceived as a dole-out as well as ensuring their systematic access to clear
information about government services.
4. Revitalizing the housing finance system by: (a) amending unsustainable housing finance
policies, including distortions created by the public sector, and (b) rationalizing
the subsidy and targeting mechanisms to prevent considerable leakage to non-poor beneficiaries.
5. Improving the shelter sector delivery system to: (a) remove duplications and
inconsistency across key shelter agencies of government vis-à-vis their mandated functions; (b)
simplify procedures (e.g., land titling and taxation) involved in availing different housing
programs such as the Community Mortgage Program (CMP); (c) institutionalize a responsive,
demand-driven and quality-oriented operating framework within shelter agencies (d)
develop coordination/consultation mechanisms for various stakeholders as well as between the
key shelter agencies; and (e) prepare LGUs for urban planning and shelter development
and capital investment programming.
D. Social Welfare and Community Development
Children
1. Addressing the needs of children in need of special protection and those
who are at risk of being put in difficult circumstances; and
2. Full enforcement of laws protecting
children.
Youth (15-30 years old)
1. Encouraging out-of-school youth (OSY) to go back to school;
2. Reducing and preventing substance abuse and juvenile delinquency and criminality;
3. Increasing the participation of the youth in productive activities, sports, sociocultural
and civic activities.
Women
1. Reducing the number of Women in Especially Difficult Circumstances (WEDCs); and
2. Increasing the participation of women in productive and remunerative activities.
Persons with disabilities (PWDs)
1. Expanding the scope of implementation and monitoring of compliance with the Magna
Carta for the Disabled.
Indigenous peoples (IPs)
1. Empowering indigenous peoples towards self-determination and eventual self-governance,
through information and education campaigns on existing programs and projects and
encouraging the use of their institutions (e.g., customary laws, indigenous systems and
practices).
Informal sector workers
1. Expanding the coverage of social security and protection for informal sector workers.
Victims of disasters
1. Strengthening the prevention, mitigation and disaster preparedness system.
2. Focusing disaster management on rehabilitation rather than relief.
Older persons
1. Maximizing older persons' contribution to the community.
Dysfunctional families
1. Facilitating a return to positive family values through a total family approach
Victims of human rights violations
1. Timely and strict enforcement of human rights laws;
2. Establishing affordable legal assistance for indigent and underprivileged victims;
3. Expanding the outreach of human rights information and education among vulnerable and
disadvantaged sectors; and
4. Widening the government-NGO-PO network for delivery of remedial rehabilitative and
financial assistance to human rights victims.
Depressed communities
1. Comprehensive and integrated delivery of services in priority high-risk areas.