A KEY indicator as to how the economy is faring from a family point of view is an analysis of per capita household spending.
The Philippine Statistics Authority has provided this information, by region, for 2014-2015. The data highlights the fact that the already poorer regions are falling further behind the relatively prosperous.
The national average growth rate is 4.5 percent but growth for most of Mindanao is much less than this. Northern Mindanao 2.3 percent, Zamboanga Peninsula 2.0 percent, Soccsksargen 1.4 percent, Caraga 0.3 percent, and the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao negative 5.2 percent are at the bottom of the league table.
At the top is Calabarzon 7.6 percent, National Capital Region 7.1 percent, and Central Luzon 6.6 percent.
Western Visayas is slightly above the national average at 5.4 percent.
Economic inequality is becoming rapidly more pronounced. I believe that President Duterte showed, during the election campaign, that he understood the problem. This is why he obtained 62 percent of the votes cast in Mindanao. A landslide.
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The Duterte administration has prepared the 2017 budget and submitted it for Congressional approval last Monday. The budget comprises P3.35 trillion. An increase of 11.2 percent over the 2016 budget which amounted to P3.002 trillion.
The increase is not spread uniformly across areas of government expenditures. There are winners and losers. Irrespective of political affiliation, therefore, I hope there will be vigorous discussions in which various budget items are assailed and defended.
A significant loser is the Department of Health whose budget has been slashed from P124.9 billion in 2016 to P94.1 billion in 2017. This will mean that the per capita expenditure on health will drop below P1,000 – comfortably inside third world standards. A 25 percent reduction cannot be achieved without redundancies. Does this mean that some of our valuable, though not apparently, valued, doctors and nurses will be fired? I hope that what remains of the Liberal Party, for example Senator Franklin Drilon and Senator Leila de Lima, will make vigorous representations to achieve a fairer budget. As things stand the health budget is only 2.8 percent of the total. Grossly inequitable.
At the other end of the scale, the budget for the Department of Education (DepEd) has enjoyed an increase of 31 percent, rising from P433.4 billion in 2016 to P567.6 billion in 2017.
President Duterte has recently announced that there would be many more new schools built, particularly in rural areas. This would have the effect of shortening the journey to school and, hopefully, ensuring that more students stay in school for longer. A completion rate approaching 100 percent for grade school students would then be achievable. This is one of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals to which the Philippines is a signatory.
On the downside is the additional facilities required for fifth and sixth year high school students. Early signs are that these students, neither in the academic or technical-vocational tracks, are able to use their time profitably. These students would be better off attending tertiary education as in the pre K-12 era. Education Secretary Leonor Briones says that some of the additional budget is required to build classrooms for fifth and sixth year high school students. This money is not well spent because students are not making the progress required to be globally competitive. Philippine educationists have mistakenly equated global competitiveness with length of formal education. We make no pretense of competing academically with the fifth and sixth year high school academic track in Singapore or Australia, and until we do we shall be left behind. The Singaporean economic success story depends substantially on its education achievements.
The proposed 2017 budget should engender vigorous debate in Congress. Evidence of congressmen challenging the budget would be much appreciated as evidence of a vibrant democracy.