When the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program was designed, the government publicly promised to limit to five years the giving of the education and health grants. This five-year limit is almost over for the first set of beneficiaries by 2013. The natural policy question then is: Would it be wise...

While the Philippine education system is in the middle of profound changes with the passage of RA 10533 or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, the country was rudely awakened by the poor results in its maiden participation in the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)...

Years of rapid and indiscriminate logging of Philippine forests, coupled with little reforestation, have led to more frequent, widespread, and damaging natural disasters, such as floods, landslides, and other environmental damages. With strong political will and noble intentions, President...

Sex-related risks, early sexual experience, and unwanted pregnancies are major concerns of Filipinos. These issues have long been battle grounds for the often rancorous debates about the provisions of the Reproductive Health (RH) Law. In December 2012, Congress approved a comprehensive RH Law...

In the aftermath of the 2016 election, labor leaders and their political allies pushed for an immediate end to the so-called employment "contractualization", a policy proposal currently popular with voters and politicians. The idea is for the government to tighten and reduce, if not prohibit,...

The Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program has been much maligned and dismissed as a "dole-out" program. Critics have focused on the fact that it provides cash grants directly to poor families, believing it would promote the culture of mendicancy and dependence. Others believe that the grants would...

It is a common belief that government should set legal minimum wages (LMW) to a level that would enable workers and their families to live decent lives. Evidence, however, has shown that a higher and more rapid pace of LMW growth leads to lower demand for labor overall. Specifically, it leads to...