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This is a qualitative inquiry looking into the experiences of parental involvement in the context of Philippine public elementary education. This paper has two goals. First, it aims to present the strategies that Filipino parents employ in order to influence children's education. Second, it aims to examine unique involvement strategies among Filipino parents. Data of this paper were culled from 12 focus group discussions conducted in 5 provinces of the country. The results of the study suggest that there are parental involvement strategies unique to the Philippine context owing to the poor economic conditions of some Filipino families. While it is not directly related to education, making ends meet and providing food for the family's table were seen as parental involvement strategies. To compensate for the limited direct involvement in education, Filipino parents looked for other means to be able to help their children excel such as exempting the latter from doing household chores, avoiding vices, and maintaining quality family relationships. It against this backdrop that this paper recommends that future quantitative studies on parental involvement in the Filipino parents' context need to consider indirect parental involvement strategies as indicators or variables as these may have spillover impacts on children's schooling.

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) is a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program to alleviate socio-economic conditions in the Philippines, addressing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 (No Poverty) and 4 (Quality Education). It attempts to address poverty, which is a risk factor to education among Filipinos. However, the program impact on education and economy remains understudied. This paper investigated the recipients of the CCT and analyzed parental involvement and its influence on students' academic achievement. In this study, parental involvement refers to parenting, learning at home, volunteering, school decision-making, collaborating, and communicating, while academic achievement pertains to the students' academic performance in the core learning areas: Science, Mathematics, English, and Filipino. Using a descriptive-correlation method, the respondents were randomly selected comprising 306 parents and 306 students in Tarragona District, Davao Oriental, Philippines. The data were analyzed using Spearman Rho Correlation and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The results showed there was no statistical correlation between parental involvement and student's academic achievement. Parents had low involvement in learning at home, volunteering, and school decision-making. On the other hand, the students demonstrated high academic achievement in the core learning areas. The significant step of the Philippine government for education through the CCT is an effective approach to keeping children in school. Emphasis must be placed on strengthening parental involvement in children's education to ensure academic success.

Measuring learning outcomes on core skills is key to building evidence on which teaching and learning interventions are most effective, and ultimately informing policy that prioritises these skills, amongst early learners. However, developing national or systems-level assessments pose considerable challenges, including implementing an effective translation process from centrally developed tools. In developing nations, limited resources compounded the challenges. This paper investigated the effect of test, classroom, and home (or mother-tongue, MoT) language correspondence on the relationship between numeracy and literacy skills amongst early-grade learners (N = 4032) in high-poverty regions in the Philippines. Results show that language correspondence does not in itself have an effect on numeracy skill but positively moderates (i.e. strengthens) the relationship between literacy and numeracy skills. The findings suggest that targeted translation can effectively remove the effect of test language on the construct being measured, language match still exerts an indirect effect on the strength of relationship amongst the skills being tested together. The finding that language factors have no direct effect is dependent on the effectiveness of the targeted translation process, but also underscores its importance especially in linguistically diverse test settings. Finally, the impact of test language and implications for systems-level testing are discussed.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that education and economic development go hand in hand. Not only is lack of education generally recognised as a cause of poverty, it has come to be recognised as one of three core "dimensions of poverty", alongside living standard and health (World Bank 2016). Despite strong economic growth throughout most of the so-called "developing world", poverty persists, and at levels which are causing many observers to doubt the meaning of "development". It thus becomes ever more important to understand the relationship between equity and development. Here, Stephen Roche introduces in this first general issue of International Review of Education, brief descriptions of some of the original papers contained in the Apr 2016 issue. The authors of the first paper--Chavanne Peercy and Nanette Svenson--examine "The Role of Higher Education in Equitable Human Development". The next article "Sustainable Development of Phillipine Coastal Resources: Subsidary in Ethnoecology through Inclusive Participatory Education" Focuses on adult education in the Phillipines. The paper applies the principles of ethnoecology (the study of the relationship between society and natural resources) to adult education for sustainable development. Specifically, the authors--Joey Ayala, Pauline Bautista, Marivic Pajaro, Mark Raquino and Paul Watts--describe and evaluate a pilot adult education initiative undertaken to help fisherfolk better manage marine resources. There are both moral and practical cases for making poverty eradication a central pillar of sustainable development. Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen expressed the moral argument succinctly: "Sustaining deprivation cannot be our goal" (Anand and Sen 2000, p. 2030). In a companion study to their paper in this journal last year (Mayombe and Lombard 2015), Celestin Mayombe and Antoinette Lombard examine the efficacy of material and human resources in non-formal education and training centres in "The Importance of Material Resources and Qualified Trainers in Adult Non-Formal Education and Training Centres in South Africa". The issue also provides a short research note which takes a critical look at "The New Language of Instruction Policy in Malawi: A House Standing on a Shaky Foundation." This paper by Gregory Hankoni Kamwendo examines a new policy that positions English as the medium of instruction from the start of primary education in a country where English is not the main language of household communication and many teachers struggle to use English as a medium of instruction.

This essay will discuss two educational programs to improve the living conditions of students from low income families that Pedro T. Orata conducted during the middle years of the twentieth century. The question this paper will investigate is whether Orata considered the people he was trying to help as being trapped by the conditions of poverty to the extent that they required the assistance of trained leaders to rise from their depressed circumstances. Although this paper is limited to the personal views of Orata, it may suggest something about the conceptions that progressive educators held about the problems of poverty in the first half of the twentieth century.

The Philippines is an archipelago of more than 7,100 islands, with a population of over 100 million people dependent upon marine resources which are characterised by a decline in both biodiversity and abundance. The resultant large sector of fisherfolk is generally impoverished with limited education, which makes coastal adult education and lifelong learning a national priority. This article considers the Filipino fisherfolk community as a culture to identify potential input strategies regarding education development for marine science concepts. In a study piloting cultural consensus theory applications with a well-established fisherfolk organisation, the authors focus on the lack of dialogue engaging Philippine fisherfolk with standards of international marine science, bioregional resource partitioning and reflexive in-country education development. Cross-cultural strategies considered in this paper include exploring paraprofessional approaches to adult education, accommodating several dialects/languages and drawing on international science concepts. While earlier adult education initiatives aimed at fisherfolk may have had limited success in part due to a lack of cultural context, this pilot study is innovative in that it applies an existing Filipino form of "social artistry" to fisherfolk identity, expression and communication. "Siningbayan" ["Sining" = art, "bayan" = nation or town], or "art whose canvas is society" evolved through the Philippine history of organic networking and participation. Results confirm that a structured ethnoecological research design combined with "Siningbayan" appear effective for identifying education and curriculum specifics both for the fisherfolk sector of Filipino society and for professional marine science; their common goal being improved resource management. The authors place particular emphasis on subsidiarity, considering how best to transfer information to individual fisherfolk and their communities, as well as exploring their scaled-up role in leadership, organisational and professional development.

The Philippines is a source of labor for many countries. Roughly 10 million overseas Filipinos are working and living outside of the Philippines. This paper examines the association between sociodemographic characteristics (sex, age, educational level, and income) and self-rated physical and mental health, access to healthcare, and health habits among immigrant Filipinos living in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. Through convenience sampling, Filipino migrants (n = 103) aged 18 years and above participated in the online survey between October 2022 and March 2023. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis and chi-square. Almost all respondents self-rated their health as excellent and very good. Female respondents are more affected by mental health. Most are enrolled in the Universal Health System of Spain (public insurance). There is more utilization of private health insurance among respondents aged 60 years and above and high-wage earners. Cigarette smoking and alcohol drinking are associated with males. More than half of the respondents perform weekly exercise occasionally or never. These findings suggest a potential need for targeted interventions with an emphasis on the practice of preventive health and the promotion of healthy lifestyles, especially among financially disadvantaged migrants with lesser health access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows mutually consistent evidence to support female advantage in education and disadvantage in labor markets observed in the Philippines. We set up a model that shows multiple Nash equilibria to explain schooling and labor market behaviors for females and males. Our evidence from unique sibling data of schooling and work history and from the Philippine Labor Force Survey support that family arrangement to tighten commitment between daughters and parents keeps a high level of schooling investments in daughters. Because wage penalty to females in labor markets means that education is relatively important as a determinant of their earnings, parental investments in their daughters' education has larger impacts on the income of their daughters than on their sons. Parents expect larger income shared from better-educated adult daughters. In contrast, males stay in an equilibrium, with low levels of schooling investment and income sharing. Our results also imply that the above institutional arrangement is stronger among poor families. (Contains 11 tables and 1 figure.)

This paper discusses particular uses of language in a specific social location in the Philippines drawn from the 15-volume ethnographic study of functional literacy in 14 marginal communities in the Philippines by Doronila (e.g. 1996). These are uses of language by people whose internal capacity to generate change is strong yet many of whom are officially "illiterate", and the sort of participatory democracy that they advocate is challenged by extreme poverty, unemployment, drug abuse, economic exploitation, and so on. Therefore, my interest in these uses of language--(1) the use of a local language, (2) the use of metaphors and symbols, and (3) the construction of "new" knowledge through novel word coinages is borne by the fact that they do not really constitute a central rallying point for the community's organised struggles, yet they are nevertheless ubiquitous elements in such struggles: they "are "invisible" factors in the development process" (Aikman, 2001: 113). Unlike debates on language policies and educational access which happen on the policy and national levels, these uses of language appear to be the "natural" choice of the people in active search of a better future.

The implementation of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 marked a new chapter in global development and laid the foundations for addressing inequalities that hinder holistic progress. However, gender gaps pose a significant threat to achieving these goals. Project DREAM (Developing Resilience, Education, Aspiration, and Motivation) sought to explore women's sense of aspiration, achievement, and lived experience in India, Syria, and the Philippines, as well as develop pilot interventions to address gender disparities. Semi-structured interviews with 69 young women from India, Syria, and the Philippines informed the development of three interventions, namely an aspiration and job skills workshop series in the Philippines, Motivational Interviewing training in Syria and the Philippines, and a social media presence and launch event worldwide. This paper presents the findings of this international project, identifying four key parallels underpinning women's lived experience: poverty, incomplete education, tradition, and patriarchy. Preexisting gender inequalities, aggravated by the widespread health, economic, and social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, must be urgently addressed to ensure that no one is left behind on the road to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research calls attention to the powerlessness of everyday people in the Philippines, by discovering what kind of power is in play, how the fallen powers can be named and made visible, and then ultimately the ways through which power should be restored. First, this paper traces back to Pre-Hispanic times and the Spanish colonial rule period in the Filipino history to investigate the foundation of contemporary power structures of the Philippines, Second, the distinctive traits of power structures in the modern Philippines are explored, with a focus on how structural evil has been situated in the system through the patron–client relation, elitism, and oligarchy, and how it causes and perpetuates the powerlessness of everyday people in the Philippines. Then, a theology of power and the church are presented as the ultimate ways through which power should be restored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multidimensional poverty comparisons can be sensitive to the choice of weights assigned to the indicators as well as the aggregate poverty measure used. This paper examines the robustness of trends in multidimensional poverty in the Philippines to these choices by presenting estimates for three alternative weighting schemes and three methods of identification and aggregation. Using data for 2004–2013, the paper finds evidence of a significant decline in multidimensional poverty that is robust to these alternatives, though the magnitude of the decline in and the dimensional contributions to aggregate multidimensional poverty are quite sensitive to the alternatives considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identified and compared pathways of childhood undernutrition among 308 rural and 310 urban children from low-income households in the Philippines. Multidisciplinary analyses based on quantitative and qualitative data revealed unique urban and rural constraints accounting for differing nutritional outcomes. Urban poor families were more food secure, though vegetable avoidance and poor micronutrient adequacy were observed. Rather than mitigate threats to undernutrition, rural households' reliance on home food agriculture heightened risk to food insecurity, as the Philippines is vulnerable to crop-destroying tropical storms. Our findings suggest the need to strengthen local governance institutions to implement context-specific multisectoral interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food insecurity remains a common problem for Southeast Asian communities that specialise in fishing. Food insecurity is closely linked to other social conditions, and the linkages between these social conditions and their underlying drivers are less well explored in fishing contexts than they are in agricultural contexts. In this paper I draw on fieldwork from a community that specialises in fishing in the Western Philippines to examine the linkages between and drivers of food and water insecurity. Food insecurity is common, and characterised by a lack of funds to buy food, particularly during periods of bad weather. Water insecurity is also characterised by the need to pay for the delivery of drinking water from one of several remote sources. Because of the central role of markets in communities that specialise in fishing, I argue that both food and water insecurity are driven by income poverty. Understanding the relations between food and water insecurity and the wider drivers of poverty in specialised fishing community contexts should generate improved understandings of how food and water insecurity persist, and how these conditions may be better addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global labor mobility and Overseas Filipino workers have been a topic of interest due to its rapid growth and its apparent links with development goals. Among the 197 countries in the world, the Philippines has one of the highest rates of migration. In this paper, the researchers have examined the statistical relationship between migration and poverty through a study, using panel data from the years 2006, 2008, 2012, 2015, and 2018 in the Philippines. Specifically, the paper examined the degree of impact of migration on poverty using the GINI coefficient and GRDP as determinants for poverty, whilst Remittances is the constant variable used. The study aimed to determine whether remittances reduce poverty as Overseas Filipino Workers continue to increase yearly. The end results showed that there is a relationship amongst poverty, international labor migration, and remittances via the fixed panel data done but show a low significance level among the said variables. Thus, there is a relationship within the variables but a low significance level to the poverty in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty is a prevailing challenge in the Philippines. Through the small area estimation (SAE) of the Philippine Statistics Authority, the poor cities and municipalities with poor households were identified. Some locations are also vulnerable to natural calamities and have limited resources. The 2018 SAE shows that the region of Eastern Visayas is one of the poorest in the country. Moreover, the region is vulnerable to natural hazards, particularly typhoons. The regional road network is also less connected for the poorer municipalities. Hence, slow economic growth is a concerted outcome. To provide an evidence-based framework on potentially optimized resource allocation of, say, government institutions and humanitarian organizations in countering these poverty concerns exacerbated by natural calamities, this paper used the geographical information system (GIS) for easier visualization and interpretability. Spatial analyses were also applied to [1] determine if clusters of poverty exist in the region across different periods and [2] if hot spots of poverty incidence exist in the latest SAE. The findings reveal that poverty incidence for all four previous periods of SAE has significant non-random clusters. In addition, poverty hot spots, at varying confidence levels, were statistically identified. These hot spots are also vulnerable to frequent typhoons and have limited access to national roads. Additionally, the bootstrap regression shows that economic growth could be boosted by expanding road networks as an indicator of decreased poverty incidence. This study, thus, further emphasizes the importance of data-driven decision-making, particularly in efforts to counter poverty, including some of its aggravating external factors such as natural calamities. The application of empirical methods in formulating and improving policies, especially those related to infrastructure investments and expansions, is also recommended, given the limited resources. It also highlights how road networks in the region could be instrumental in promoting economic progress, particularly in less accessible areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide insights into how teachers can sustain ICT integration practices in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas. A mixed-method case study design was used for the study. Data were collected through interviews, questionnaires, classroom observation, and document examination. Qualitative analysis and descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. For data validity, triangulation of responses and member checking was carried out. The study identified successful technology integration factors in geographically isolated and disadvantaged schools: a strong community of practice, an adequate support system, and contextual ICT integration practices. It suggests that teachers' pedagogical practices related to ICT toned to undergo a continuous process of review and reflection to ensure that ICT-related practices remain pedagogically effective and relevant to changing needs and contexts. The account of the teachers in this study, focusing on their teaching experiences in a school in a remote, low-income area, creates a paradigm for comparative research on education in challenging contexts. Comparative studies on ICT integration practices in poverty-stricken, post-disaster, and conflict-affected areas, could provide inputs for formulating context-specific policy recommendations that could support successful ICT integration in small rural schools in the Philippines and other developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent article, it was reported that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the economic situation of some countries. It led to some people losing jobs amidst the difficult situation that the pandemic caused. Thus, this paper discusses the need to provide a program for the least advantaged citizens so that they can still experience their basic liberties. The least advantaged citizens, as Rawls deem them, are the ones who lost jobs and incomes were hit the hardest during the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty in the context of rural farming is site-specific. The differences in natural resource endowment and availability of social services across Agroecology shape farming households' well-being. In the Philippines, there is a scant supply of comparative studies on the multidimensional poverty situation across different farming systems. This study aimed to close this knowledge gap by assessing the multidimensional poverty and its determinants across upland, lowland, and coastal farming areas in Occidental Mindoro, Philippines. Using the Alkire-Foster methodology, data from 210 randomly selected farming households revealed that five of seven households are multidimensionally poor. The coastal area registered the highest Multidimensional Poverty Index at 0.41, where most households are deprived of education, decent housing, clean fuel source, paved access road, and farmland. Also, the analysis exposed the poverty dominance of indigenous farming households over non-indigenous migrant households. For all the Agroecology, the households' lack of education and incapacity to take on economic opportunities and secure productive assets limits them from investing in things that improve their living conditions. Estimates of binary logistic regression showed that non-indigenous farming households with female and educated householders, fewer dependents, larger agricultural holdings, access to formal credits, and non-farm business are significantly less likely to fall into poverty. The local government and concerned development organizations may consider investing in social protection programs that improve access to formal education, spur on-farm and non-farm livelihood opportunities, and enhance public infrastructure services to reduce multidimensional poverty in Occidental Mindoro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental involvement plays a crucial role in the achievement of positive educational outcomes of children. However, the level of involvement among parents varies based on the confluence of individual, familial, and societal factors. Anchored on such premise, this paper aims to investigate the influence of the different socioeconomic related variables to parental involvement, such as monthly income, subjective assessment of living condition, weekly expenditures related to children's education, and membership in Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). It separately analyses parental involvement at home and in school, as these two distinctively involve nuanced practices. This paper is based on a survey conducted with 1,638 parents, mostly experiencing poverty, from 29 public elementary and high schools in six purposively selected municipalities/cities in the Philippines. The survey offers four major findings. First, the parents generally were more or less involved in parental involvement at home than in school. Second, parents in relatively higher income group showed parental involvement both at home and in school. However, a different picture appeared when taking into consideration the subject assessment of parents about their living conditions. Those who considered themselves to be very poor manifested parental involvement at home and in school more than those who viewed themselves to be economically better off. Third, parental involvement in school was relatively higher among CCT member parents than their non-CCT counterparts. Fourth, regression analysis identifies membership in CCT as a predictor of parental involvement. This paper concludes that financial resources from work or the CCT program could facilitate parental involvement in children's education, especially among parents from relatively high income generating households and families living in poverty. This paper recommends to further examine the impacts of income disparity on parental involvement among parents living in poverty. Most studies look at variations in parental involvement across income groups. However, even within a specific income group, levels of parental involvement thus vary. Hence, it is interesting to know if intra-group income differentials can explain and predict variations in levels of parental involvement among families in the lowest income quantile of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores assets for health and well-being for women in extremely poor rural areas in Ghana, Haiti, India, the Philippines, and Tanzania. Data were collected through individual interviews and focus group interviews with local women. The paper asks (i) which assets women draw on for well-being in resource-poor settings, and (ii) whether an assets approach, as understood in the Salutogenic Model, is appropriate and meaningful in the most deprived areas. Low levels of natural, material and infrastructural resources were reported by the respondents to cause stress, and assets of a human, social and cultural character were identified as being important in coping with this stress. By mobilizing the capacity and assets of people and places, local development initiatives will make sense logically (comprehensibility), they will be perceived to be practically realistic (manageability), and they will be motivating because they are meaningful, based on involvement in decision-making (meaningfulness). The assets focus must co-exist with initiatives to improve distributional justice. We conclude that an asset approach to well-being is not only appropriate, but also necessary, in even the poorest contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

From being a non-normative family episode, the practice of grandparents raising grandchildren has become a normative experience in recent years. Such involvement of grandparents, whether primary or secondary, is rooted from a multitude of reasons and poses a number of implications to identifying interventions and mechanisms to support them in their transition to a new role. This paper argues that among the typologies of caregiving grandparents, the skipped generation (custodial care) becomes more vulnerable when embracing the task of caring for a sick grandchild, especially those coming from low-income families. Framed around Wilfred Bion's theory of affective containment, this phenomenological inquiry sought to describe the emotional journey of a select group of Filipino grandparents (51–64 years) with their sick grandchildren. Narratives shared by the participants were subjected to Colaizzi's descriptive phenomenological procedure to capture the essence or lebenswelt of the phenomenon. Findings of this study yielded the emergence of the Skipped Generation Grandparents' Container of Emotions. The emerged conceptualization is a valuable anchor for educational gerontologists and social workers as they continue to serve this vulnerable group whose experience of hopefulness and helplessness can be mitigated by meaningful and supportive measures and structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Using panel data for provinces compiled from household expenditure microdata, the present paper empirically investigates the relationships among growth, poverty and inequality in Thailand and the Philippines. The empirical model avoids the potential bias due to the fact that the entire distribution of individual-level consumption changes over time and empirical variables for growth, poverty and inequality are often compiled from the consumption distribution. The system generalized method of moments estimation results strongly suggest that inequality reduced the growth rate of per-capita consumption, and that differences in inequality explain a substantial portion of the Philippine-Thai difference in growth and poverty reduction since the late 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National sustainable development strategies (NSDSs) play a vital role in pursuing sustainable development (SD) at the country level. These strategies help in clarifying priorities and in focusing efforts to more effectively address relevant SD issues. Since its establishment in 1992, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development has urged its members to formulate and implement their respective NSDS. The Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21 (1997) provided a more aggressive push to this advocacy by setting 2002 as the deadline for the formulation of NSDS while the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (2002) targeted 2005 as the year by which all countries should have started implementing such strategies. Many countries have heeded this call, albeit the strategies have taken a variety of forms: some took the route of formulating National Agenda 21s (as in the Philippine case), while others built on existing national environmental action plans, poverty strategies, sustainability plans, so-called green plans, policy statements, or legal frameworks. The UN/DESA crafted some guidelines for NSDS formulation but, and rightly so, countries are given freedom of choice as to the scope, substance and form best suited to their own unique circumstances. As varied as the formats of these strategies turned out, so too were the processes that were adopted in their formulation. All these elements could reflect varying degrees of understanding and differing perspectives about the nature of sustainable development and how the concept could be made operational. Consequently, such an understanding could ultimately define a country's success in mainstreaming and achieving sustainable development. In this connection, it would be worthwhile examining how an NSDS has actually played out its role in the national pursuit of sustainable development. Are there creative insights, lessons or guidelines that can be drawn from practical, countrywide experience in NSDS formulation and implementation? What are the emerging challenges and problematic areas in using an NSDS as an instrument for integrating sustainable development in mainstream decision-making? Are there nascent considerations that could be useful in developing design parameters for NSDS? This paper explores the foregoing questions in the Philippine context, given its decade-long experience in implementing its NSDS, the Philippine Agenda 21 (PA 21). In so doing, it hopes to distill potentially valuable perspectives that can inform UNCSD and country-level efforts at crafting, refining and mainstreaming national strategies for sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Philippines seems to be on track towards achieving some Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), subnational disparities exist indicating possible patterns of isolation or discrimination. This paper examines whether and how geographical and political economy factors help to explain these disparities, focusing specifically on the MDG targets most closely related to the Human Development Index: poverty incidence, per capita income, infant mortality and primary education completion rates. The paper shows that climate, topography and other spatial factors affect the pace of communities with respect to human development targets. In addition, history and institutions also play a role: provinces characterized by ongoing social-political or socio-cultural conflicts with the state, or those governed by local political dynasties, are lagging on most outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the influence of consumption risk on incentives for soil conservation. A dynamic model is developed to show how investments in soil conservation affect consumption risk on small farms and how these risks influence incentives for soil conservation. Model predictions are compared with observed patterns of soil conservation adoption in the Philippines. Results show that on small farms the risk of consumption shortfall generates inefficient patterns of soil conservation adoption. Observed adoption patterns reflect risk characteristics of the soil conservation method, differences in risk exposure among farms, and differences in farm size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have generally been reticent in attributing any special role to natural disasters in shaping the evolution of human societies, yet there is a fundamental relationship between the history and structure of societies and its vulnerability to these events. This paper explores the relationship between environment and poverty in one such society particularly vulnerable to natural disasters, the Philippines. It argues that the extremes of wealth and power characteristic of this society are possibly the result of the frequency and magnitude of such events that exacerbate social inequalities. Specifically, the paper examines the rising incidence of natural disasters in recent decades, both globally and within the Philippines, and then assesses the effectiveness of the relief mechanisms that the latter has evolved to cope with these occurrences. Finally, the paper investigates the correlation between natural disasters and the way power and wealth are articulated in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the general character of post-war Philippine economic development and the elements and implications of an agriculture- and employment-led development strategy (AEDS) that is deemed superior to addressing the twin problems of abject poverty and high unemployment and underemployment in the Philippines. AEDS, proposed as an alternative development strategy, calls for the elimination of the biases of public policy against agriculture, thereby giving agriculture a central place in the development process. The key is to enhance rural income growth and industrialization through the employment and income multiplier effects of productivity increases in agriculture. While agricultural growth is not the ultimate objective of development policy, it is a critical step which must not be missed, for the mechanism of agricultural growth and the sequence of employment and income multiplier effects it sets in motion throughout the economy represent the key to a rapid, broad-based, and self-sustaining economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the empirical evidence linking political dynasties in the Philippines to the imposition of term limits under the 1987 Constitution. It finds evidence that political clans have found a way around this Constitutional constraint by fielding more family members in power--giving rise to more fat political dynasties. Hence, we carefully argue that the introduction of term limits--combined with the failure to introduce other ancillary reforms (notably an anti-dynasty law)--may have brought about instead some unintended consequences. So, it is not term limits per se that created fat political dynasties. We further argue that it is a non sequitur to argue that dynasties will be curbed by removing term limits. This is particularly true given fat political clans are already prevalent, and removing term limits will secure the political foothold of many already fat political dynasties. To illustrate their expansion, we use network analysis and illustrations of power concentration over time in particular jurisdictions. We conclude that real reforms should be focused not on removing term limits, but on further strengthening those reforms that should have accompanied it, including enhancing competition in the political sphere, such as by supplying alternative leaders, strengthening political parties, and regulating political dynasties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In many contexts, women with disability have less access to sexual and reproductive health information, screening, prevention, and care services than women without disability. Women with disability are also known to be more likely to experience physical and sexual violence than women without disability. In the Philippines, health service providers often have little awareness of the sexual and reproductive experiences of women with disability and limited capacity to provide services in response to their needs. Very limited data are available to inform development of disability-inclusive sexual and reproductive health, and violence prevention and response, services in the country. This paper presents the protocol for W-DARE (Women with Disability taking Action on REproductive and sexual health), a three-year program of participatory action research that aims to improve the sexual and reproductive health of women with disability in the Philippines.Design: W-DARE is a disability-inclusive program that will use mixed methods to 1) increase understanding of factors influencing the sexual and reproductive health of women with disability, and 2) develop, implement and evaluate local interventions to increase supply of and demand for services. W-DARE will generate data on the prevalence of disability in two districts; the wellbeing and community participation of people with and without disability, and identify barriers to community; and describe the sexual and reproductive health needs and experiences, and service-related experiences of women with disability. These data will inform the development and evaluation of interventions aiming to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services, and violence prevention and response services, for women with disability. Local women with disabilities, their representative organisations, and SRH service providers will be involved as members of the research team across all stages of the research.Discussion: This three-year study will provide evidence about factors undermining the sexual and reproductive health of women with disability in a lower-middle income country, and provide new insights about what may be effective in increasing access to services in settings of limited resources. Findings will be relevant across Asia and the Pacific. Analysis of the program will also provide evidence about disability-inclusion in participatory action research approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past four decades, the Philippines has achieved significant advances in its growth performance and has undergone a series of transformations in its political, economic and social structures. However, while average incomes have risen, the country's record in terms of generating quality employment and reducing poverty and inequality has been disappointing. High levels of income inequality and social exclusion have persisted in the country, even as the rate of upward socio-economic mobility, at least compared to its ASEAN neighbours, has been low. Moreover, new evidence suggests that key forms of wealth inequality have been rising. These trends are caused not only by poor human and physical investment as well as the adverse effects of premature deindustrialization, but also by the dynamics of an oligarchical political economy in which political dynasties and family-linked conglomerates have substantially curbed the capacity of non-elite formations and players to assert more developmental policy regimes and substantive democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decentralization is a common public sector reform in developing countries. Its basic rationale is that local governments have an informational advantage regarding the needs and preferences of consumers. However, decentralization also has drawbacks. Foremost is the efficiency advantage of the central government in providing public services because of economies of scale and better access to resources. This study looked at the relationship between decentralization and poverty using data from Philippine cities and municipalities. Results suggest that decentralization, as represented by fiscal independence and measured by the share of locally sourced revenues to total local government revenues, is indeed associated with lower poverty. However, this effect is not linear—the marginal effect of decentralization on poverty diminishes as decentralization increases. Moreover, decentralization moderates the positive effect of good governance on poverty reduction and the magnitude of the relationship between poverty and decentralization is stronger in poorer municipalities than in richer ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a critique of the perceived privileged position of religious discourse in the Philippines through the analysis of the pronouncements on poverty of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) from 1986 up to 2012. An examination of the CBCP documents reveals some gaps and deficits in its poverty discourses evidenced by the unqualified usage of the term "poverty" in the pronouncements. This paper contends that while pastoral letters and exhortations on poverty are hortatory, its impact on public reception remains uncertain. It further argues that amidst increasing pluralism of ideas in a democratic state such as the Philippines, religious, and pastoral or moral discourse among many other discourses must be expressed as rationally understandable in the public sphere and open to engage other discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent labor migration from third-world countries can be symptomatic of an unjust global order. In a third-world country like the Philippines, this unjust global order can be exemplified in the plight of its overseas migrant workers. This paper specifically examines the case of Filipino domestic migrant workers vis-à-vis global justice in the light of Thomas Pogge’s institutional moral analysis. Its key claim is that the present global set-up is a determining cause of global injustice that engenders global poverty. As a result, scores of Filipinos, mostly women, are driven to engage in domestic labor abroad that exposes them to certain grave risks. It further argues that poverty in third-world countries like the Philippines cannot only be explained by domestic factors such as graft and corruption, unclean elections, increasing population, the moral probity and industriousness of the citizens, etc., but also in terms of how the underlying rules of the present global order are unjustly shaped by certain affluent and politically-influential countries. By applying Pogge’s institutional moral analysis, this study hopes to understand better the diaspora and plight of Filipino domestic migrant workers in a wider context and provide an alternative to the theory of domestic labor migration. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study aims to investigate the causal relationship between poverty, growth, financial development, and natural disasters in the Philippines from 1970 to 2014. The Toda-Yamamoto version of the Granger causality test was employed. We find that financial development, poverty, and economic growth were bidirectionally causal. However, we noted a unidirectional Granger causality from natural disasters to financial development and economic growth. In this regard, effective disaster risk-reduction strategies and risk management practices are proposed to mitigate the influence of natural disasters on the rate of poverty and thus promote sustainable economic growth and financial development in the Philippines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working within the framework of poverty as a multidimensional condition of limitations (Chambers 2007, 2006, 2005, 1995) and the absence of well-being (Narayan, Chambers and others 2000) this paper focuses on the political dimension of poverty particularly in the area of human rights. What is thus figuratively referred to as the political face of poverty is neither the economic nor the statistical of depravity but livedexperiences and over-all condition that forms a web of humiliation, manipulation and isolation among others. In this paper, the political face of poverty needs is understood and presented qualitatively within the context of the landscape of power relations concrete in the experiences of human rights violations among the poor. It is, in a profound sense, the gestalt of the narratives of the poor themselves (cf. environment, participants and methodology for an elaboration of this) and their experiences. The depth and concreteness of these narratives constitute the very data subject to analysis and serve as the basis as well for the formulation of the conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High rates of urbanisation in the South have led to unsustainable development in its cities and towns. The form of development that is taking place is 'parasitic', in that it excludes the poor and follows the development paradigm of the North rather than one more appropriate to the situations faced in the South. Sustainable development is seen as a measure to counterpoise economic growth with environmental concerns, but it remains doubtful whether this can be realised since the impact of participation of the countries of the South in the global market has proved disastrous. This paper highlights the need to be aware of a country's 'carrying' and 'caring' capacity, and argues that work towards sustainable development needs to go from the poor upwards. The Philippines epitomises these concerns, especially regarding the high rate of urbanisation in Metro Manila, where environmental problems and lack of services have led to a deterioration in the quality of life. This is seen by the author to be the responsibility of five overlapping power groups - the state, business, the church, the media, and international aid agencies. The latter tend to follow the Northern development paradigm, which places the South in a vulnerable position and forces Southern governments to act against their country's best interests. A new development paradigm is desperately needed that will avoid the mistakes of the past and improve future prospects for the poor and the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In this paper, we propose a new method of poverty decomposition. Our method remedies the shortcomings of existing methods and has some desirable properties such as time-reversion consistency and subperiod additivity. Our decomposition integrates the existing methods of growth-redistribution decomposition and sector-based decomposition, because it allows us to decompose the change in poverty into growth and redistribution components for each group (e.g., regions or sectors) in the economy. Our decomposition works well in cases where only partial data are available for some periods. It is also flexible and can be extended to have the following six components: population shift, within-region redistribution, between-region redistribution, nominal growth, inflation, and methodological change components. The empirical application of the six-way decomposition to the Philippines for the period 1985–2009 shows that important policies for poverty reduction may differ across regions. For example, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao would need growth-enhancing policies, whereas Eastern Visayas would need policies to improve the income distribution. Our decomposition method has a wide applicability and may complement the poverty profile approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about the squatter problems in Manila, Philippines and other developing countries is presented. It discusses the housing programs for the squatters in the Philippines and other developing countries, and the relationship of poverty and squatting. It also offers the study on the squatters area in Barrio Magsaysay near Manila Bay.

This study describes and explains the multifaceted effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the socio-economic and psychosocial well-being of the artisanal fishing communities in Central Philippines. The state of child labour and their education amidst the COVID-19 lockdown were also explored. Four hundred artisanal fishing households, with 792 children, from the 10 coastal municipalities in Aklan province were surveyed in May–December 2020 through face-to-face household interviews. The COVID-19 pandemic worsened poverty in these highly vulnerable fishing communities primarily through severe disruptions in their fishing and marine tourism-related livelihoods. The proportion of households living below the Philippine poverty threshold of PHP12,030 (USD232.7) monthly for a family of five members increased from 78% pre-COVID to 91% peri-COVID. This economic impoverishment was more pronounced in larger families with limited income, as in the survey sites, where 41% of the households have more than five family members. Furthermore, 57% of the surveyed households believed that learning difficulty increased by 81% among children due to the blended online education modality. Amidst increased impoverishment, child labour intensified, and children stopped schooling. A significant decline in happiness index peri-COVID was also observed in the study sites indicating extreme socio-economic challenges. Contrary to expectations, however, interpersonal relations in most households improved, underscoring women's stabilising and nurturing role. This latter phenomenon signifies that cooperative and nurturing actor relationships can be generated even in a crisis. Policies that mainstreamed local communities' reproductive health, family planning, and programmes that diversify socio-economic, environmental, and technological assets must be renewed and promoted. The goal is to holistically improve human well-being by increasing or sustaining stocks of these assets to promote resilience and sustainability amidst crisis and complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected various sectors of society and people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, and each either faces economic, social, or psychological challenges. However, it is interesting to examine how the poorest of the poor families who faced limitations in their socioeconomic conditions lived and were affected during the pandemic. By employing the descriptive phenomenological inquiry, this study aimed to explore and describe the meaning of the experiences of the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4P's) beneficiaries, particularly the 4P's level 1 families in Bonifacio, Misamis Occidental, Philippines amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Six participants were purposively chosen for the study. The semi-structured interview was guided by the central question: what is the meaning of your situation now living with the COVID-19 pandemic? The findings of the study revealed five central themes which represented the participants' experiences amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, namely, socioeconomic limitations and struggles, acceptance of the existing condition, interdependence within social networks, fear and disbelief over the disease, and optimistic outlook on their condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies factors of NGO interventions that enable an escape from the poverty trap, through in-depth analysis of the life courses of at-risk youths engaged with an NGO in the Philippines slums. Applying the Trajectory Equifinality Model for interview analysis, the study found the following crucial factors: a mentor role based on continuous support between youths and NGO staff; comprehensive intervention for children, family, and community focusing on children's career and life planning; peer educators; and transitional work opportunities. The findings demonstrate lessons for the development community in policy formulation and the implementation of programmes to effectively tackle child poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic and the resulting containment policies have hit the Philippines harder than most developing countries. The government lockdown is among the strictest in the world, and blanket school closures are the lengthiest. This article uses a novel simulation model to estimate the gendered and regional impacts of these factors on labour, income and poverty, and a case study of school closures points to the losses in employment among private school teachers and in the income of parents with young children. The authors find that the pandemic has had unprecedented implications for economic activity and has disproportionately affected women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a discussion on the themes and meanings of allegories, metaphors, sayings and even jokes in speeches in Filipino of Philippine President Benigno Simeon Aquino III. The texts ofthe speeches that were analyzed for this study were downloaded from the official websites of the government of the Republic of the Philippines and from a local non-government, organization. The Filipino Psychology perspective is used as anchor in doing preliminaty analysis of President Aquino first four speeches in Filipino to explore how the use of the lingua franca mediates in the understanding and in making-sense of the message. Textual analysis was used to determine the themes' in the speeches. The approach in hermeneutics was also used for meaning-making. The selected speeches were delivered in politico-historical events such as during the oath-taking of the President of the Republic of the Philippines, the opening of congress (State of the Nation Address), the meeting with Filipino communities in the USA, and the reportfor the 100th day ofthe President in Malacañan Palace. The theme that is consistently shown in the speeches is the twin-problem ofcorruption and poverty. The speeches are teeming with allegories and metaphors that criticize corrupt practices particularly ofhigh ranking officials in government organizations which is said to reflect the insensitivity to kapuwa (shared self). It is evidently expressed in the speeches the call to succor the heavily burdened and the hardest hit in corruption - the many poor in Philippine society. The speeches may sound serious about seeking and relentlessly pursuing corrupt officials in government organizations and heading on to the 'straight path,' but it seems that such road to reform is still at a distance. An in-depth analysis ofmany other .speeches the President will pronounce should be done to find out how not just small steps but great strides are truly taken to the right path. The said study has to find evidence in the actions of President Aquino and his team in government and see if they are moving quickly and learning fast the ins and outs of 'good governance' so as to make big leaps in the right path towards meaningful reform. In doing such a study, the analysis also has to focus on the veracity of the sincerity of their intentions, i.e. to seek the way into the psyche of the Filipino people particularly, the loob. It is then very necessary to see signs in our society of things have become better which the Aquino administration promised to work for such as against injustices, to practice fairness and to provide equal access for every Filipino, as we walk in the way of the truth for the kapuwa (shared self). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A computable general equilibrium micro-simulation model is used to assess the economic and poverty impacts of tariff reduction in the Philippines. Tariff reduction induces consumers to substitute cheaper imported agricultural products for domestic goods, thereby resulting in a contraction in agricultural output. In contrast, tariff reduction reduces the domestic cost of production, benefiting the outward-oriented and import-dependent industrial sector. The national poverty headcount decreases marginally as lower consumer prices outweigh the nominal income reduction experienced by the majority of households. However, both the poverty gap and severity of poverty worsens, implying that the poorest of the poor become even poorer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, microfinance has become the leading development strategy adopted by NGOs and government agencies for supporting microenterprise projects that can alleviate poverty and empower participants, especially women. Views differ, however, on whether microfinance addresses the symptoms or the social causes of poverty. This paper engages these debates by analyzing the microfinance program established by the Center for Women's Enterprise Development (CWED) in Laguna province, southern Luzon, Philippines. I argue that increased access to credit, the current focus of CWED's program, does not transform the social and economic infrastructure within which women work and live and thus falls short of institutional claims to empower beneficiaries and improve their quality of life. I suggest that the extent to which microfinance develops transformatory initiatives to meet women's real needs depends on how programs enfold social change objectives beyond credit and enable political advocacy for individual and collective action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines socioeconomic changes and decline in rural poverty using a panel dataset collected in the Philippine villages in 1985, 1993 and 1997. The most important finding is the transition of the rural economy away from a regime of low nonfarm income to a regime of high nonfarm income accompanied by a marked decline in poverty. The relative contribution of access to land on rural poverty reduction declined, whereas the relative contribution of human capital, more importantly represented by college schooling, increased over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the processes of growth and poverty reduction simultaneously under a neoclassical growth model framework, using provincial data from the Philippines. We obtain a high rate of provincial income convergence and a tradeoff between equity and growth. The lack of political competition inhibits growth. Land reform is positively associated with growth and poverty reduction while higher agricultural terms of trade facilitate poverty reduction. The “growth elasticity of poverty reduction” is low by international standards but is sensitive to sectoral income composition and initial conditions in poverty incidence, mortality rate and irrigation coverage. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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