9 Ratings Given to the PNoy Administration

PNoy Admin Positive/ Favorable

Duterte Administration Positive/ Favorable but reforms need follow through The Performance of the Aquino Administration (2010-2016)

Table VII.9. Ratings Given to the PNoy Administration

Academe CSOs Media/ Social media

Penalba (UP-CIDS Forum):

Positive/favorable

Diokno (UP-NCPAG Forum):

Negative MGG:

Perfect score of 10 in governance but overall rating was 5.93.

Ibon Foundation:

Negative Rappler.com: Mixed- partially delivered/ undelivered, still has a lot to do to deliver his 2010 promises

Inquirer.com:

Positive/favorable 12 kept, 9 not yet kept

Huffington Post:

Very positive/ favorable Konrad Adenauer Foundation:

Negative World Bank:

Worldwide Governance Indicators – positive : improving performance from 2010-2016 based on the indices in Corruption Perception except in 2015, Economic Freedom, Global Competitiveness, Ease of Doing Business

Twitter:

Mixed sentiments

The Guidon:

Positive/favorable

These groups commended some of the administration’s reform programs and initiatives such as the bottom-up budgeting, citizen participatory audit, ease in doing business, reforms in the budget process, and the filing of graft cases versus high-profile government officials.

On the other hand, the following major challenges and issues that hounded the administration blot the good governance record of the PNoy administration: • human rights violations and extrajudicial killings of activists, peasants and minorities; • pork barrel system and the disbursement acceleration program which were both declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; • non-passage of the bills on FOI and protection of whistleblowers; • Mamasapano massacre; • Luneta hostage crisis; • high toll of Yolanda supertyphoon casualties and slow relief operations and rehabilitation; • inequitable growth; • selective prosecution and patronage politics; • delayed delivery of services; and • worsening condition of public transportation.

One of the major issues faced by the PNoy administration was the Pork Barrel Scandal, wherein some legislators were accused of misusing their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF). Cases of plunder and malversation of public funds were filed against the legislators involved in the scam. The Supreme Court eventually ruled the PDAF as unconstitutional. A fallout from the scandal was the discovery of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) devised and implemented by the DBM to accelerate disbursement and utilize savings without legislative approval. Like PDAF, DAP was also declared by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.

The Social Contract mandated the Human Development and Poverty Reduction cluster “to translate the gains from good governance into direct, immediate and substantial benefits for the poor” (EO 43, 2011, Section 7). The administration, thus, aimed for the improvement of the quality of life of all Filipinos, especially the vulnerable and poor, and for the provision of opportunities to reach their full potential.

The Social Contract mandated the departments under the cluster to pursue the following gqoals: • making education the central strategy for investing in our people, reducing poverty and building national competitiveness; • recognizing the importance of advancing and protecting public health; • building of the capacities and creation of opportunities among the poor and the marginalized; • increasing social protection and engaging communities in their own development; • promotion of equal gender opportunities in all spheres of public policies and programs; and • ensuring effective coordination of national government programs for poverty reduction at the local level. (EO 43, 2011, Section 7)

In fine, poverty reduction and empowerment of the poor and vulnerable are two main outcomes in the strategic framework of the PDP, 2011-2016. Two subsector outcomes were also identified for each sector outcome, to wit: a) Improve human capabilities: (1) Health and nutrition status improved (2) Knowledge skills enhanced b) Reduction of vulnerabilities: (1) Social protection expanded (2) Access to secure shelter expanded.

A significant omission in the revalidated results matrices was the subsector outcome “access to asset reform improved.” Consequently, target indicators, which mostly pertain to implementation of the agrarian reform program, under the asset reform subsector outcome were dropped from the mid-term development plan.

Meanwhile, the increase in allocation in these departments was backed up by policy reform through legislation. The PNoy administration has passed landmark legislations in the health and education sectors. Among the laws passed during the term of President Aquino are the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law, the Sin Tax Law, and the National Health Insurance Act.

The PNoy administration attributes the following banner achievements to the enactment and implementation of the reform measures in the sectors of education, health and social development: • Increased beneficiaries of CCT: 786,523 households in 2010 to 4,377,762 households in 2015 • Hunger in households reduced (SWS) : 23.4% in 2009 to 11.7% in 2015 • Irrigation: 144, 016 hectares (2001-2010) to 164,230 hectares of land irrigated in 2014 • Number of out of school children was reduced from 11.7M in 2008 to 5.2M in 2013 • Philhealth coverage expanded from 47.07 million members in 2010 to 93.45 million in 2015 • Poverty incidence rate reduced from 26.3% in 2009 to 21.6% in 2015 • Budget for SUCs doubled from P22.4B in 2010 to Php47.4B in 2016 • 9,536,994 TESDA (TVET) graduates • 1,055,335 TESDA (TWSP) graduates • Classrooms built: from 17,305 (2005-2010) to 89,720 classrooms (2016) • Employment: 92.7% (2010) to 94.2% (2016) • Unemployment rate decreased from 7.3% in 2010 to 5.8% in 2016 (National Government Portal)

The Philippine human development statistics presented in Table VII.12 also speaks of a rosy picture of the Aquino administration accomplishment in terms of poverty reduction and social development. Significant to slight improvement in population and poverty status is noted. There is also a marked progress in the country’s education situation, specifically in public education spending. On the other hand, the impact of gains in education to labor and employment has yet to be fully realized.

Population • Total population (2016): 100.98M • Annual population growth rate: 1.72% • Total fertility rate (2011): 3.1% (slightly lower) • Life expectancy at birth (2015): 72.0 for women and 65.3 for men (shorter) • Contraceptive prevalence rate across: 55.1 (increased)

Standard of Living • Poverty incidence (2015): 21.6% (Slightly declined from 26.3% in 2009) • Gini coefficient ratio (2012): 0.4605 (Slightkydropped from 0.4641 in 2009) • Subsistence incidence among families (2015): 5.7%, (declined from 7.9% in 2009)

Food • Average expenditure on food (2015): 41.9% (declined from 42.6% in 2009)

Water and

Sanitation • Access to safe water supply (2014): 85.5% (increased from 84.4% in 2011) • Families with sanitary toilet facility (2014): 94.1 (increased from 91.6% in 2011)

Healthcare and Disease • Reported HIV cases (June 2016): 34,999 (rose from 6,015 by December 2010) • Average number of newly-diagnosed HIV case per day: 26 (increased from 4 in 2010) • The annual rate of death caused by AIDS: 625 (increased from 482 in 2010) • Malaria morbidity rate per 100,000 population (2015): 5.5 (reduced from 9.5 in 2010) • Malaria mortality rate per 100,000 population (2015): 0.019 (slightly increased from 0.01 in 2011) • Under-five infant mortality rate (2015): 28 (slightly decreased from 34 in 2008) • Under-five malnutrition (underweight-for-age) rate (2013): 19.9% (decreased from 20.2% in 2011)

Education and Employment

Source: NEDA (2015) • Basic literacy rate (2013): 96.5% increased from 95.6% in 2008 • Functional literacy rate (2013): 90.3% (increased from 86.4% in 2008) • Net enrolment rate for 5-year-old children (2014): 79.3% (increased from 57.2% in 2010) • Net enrolment rate for 6-11-year-old children (2014): 94.5 (decreased from 98.5% in 2010) • Spending for education by the national government (2015): Php17.282 billion (increased from Php8.815 billion in 2010) • Average spending per public school student (2015): Php364.66 (increased from Php174.75 in 2010) • Labor force participation rate (2016): 63.4% (decreased from 64.1% in 2010) • Unemployment rate: 5.5% (decreased from 7.3% in 2010)

However, the achievements in the key result areas of the cluster as well as in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were rather modest. Despite cutting the poverty incidence rate to 21.6% in 2015—from 26.3% in 2009—the PNoy administration fell short in reducing the poverty rate to 17.5% as projected in the MDGs.

In fact poverty reduction has been slow over time, though recent gains have been made (Balisacan 2015) (see Fig. VII.5)