Director Efren Carreon of the National Economic Development Authority in Central Visayas discusses the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 during the launch of a lecture series on the plan at the University of San Carlos Talamban Campus.
CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA
How can the Philippine Development Plan become “the Filipino people’s plan?
This is the question that the academe and its partners are trying to address by raising awareness among concerned stakeholders through a lecture series on the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) and Central Visayas Regional Development Plan (RDP) 2017-2022.
The lecture series are organized by the University of San Carlos with its partners being the National Economic Development Authority (Neda) and the World Bank.
Brenette Abrenica, director of community extension services at USC, said this is the academe’s initiative to recognize its role in the country’s development.
“In most cases, we are so detached with our researches. But these are not translated to what is really needed,” she said during the launch of the lecture series at the Michael Richartz Conference Hall in USC-Talamban Campus on Tuesday.
The lecture series will run monthly until March next year.
Abrenica said this is an effort to increase the awareness of stakeholders — particularly local government units, civil society organizations, the academe, and the grassroots — on the PDP and PRDP.
She said they also intend to lay the groundwork for more specific collaborations among these different actors and institutions for the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of plans.
A significant portion of the event will be dedicated to a town hall discussion, allowing CSO and LGU representatives to share their thoughts on the plans.
Abrenica said they hope to generate ideas from communities and frontline service providers on how to make the PDP “the Filipino people’s plan.”
As outlined in the PDP 2017-2022, among the targets the government aims to achieve by 2022 are turning the Philippines into an upper middle-income country, reducing national poverty incidence from 30 percent to 20 percent, reaching high levels of human development, and bringing the unemployment rate down from 5.5 percent to 3-5 percent.
Abrenica said partnerships such as that which they entered into with the Neda are crucial in bringing to the public a better understanding of what the government intends to do in the medium-term to achieve the collective aspirations of Filipinos.
“It is being hoped that through this lecture series, we can engage the public in fruitful and informed discussions, and get everyone’s cooperation to do their share for the development of the country,” she said.
Neda Central Visayas Director Efren Carreon, for his part, vowed to continue engaging different sectors to further improve the PRDP to make it more responsive to the needs of people in the region.
While the Philippines has been enjoying robust growth in recent years, one major criticism the government has received was that this growth was never felt on the ground.
The Philippines’ and Central Visayas’ economies grew by 6.9 percent and 8.8 percent, respectively, in 2016.
Carreon said they intend to make this growth trickle down to the grassroots through a more inclusive development plan.