Operation Zero: The Call for Economic Liberation What is the value of Php 1,500? Of Php 3,000? To “Raf” of Sta. Cruz, Marinduque, it gave him tsinelas to bring him to school and eat breakfast. It allows 10-year old “Jennifer” and her siblings of Guiuan, Eastern Samar to take notes with pencils and paper and to proudly go to school with their bags. Grade 5 star section pupil “Jeric” of Anini-y, Antique is able to attend his school’s journalism and math workshops as the project fees as well as food and transportation allowances are now taken cared of. These are 3 of at least 30 stories we gathered when we visited the homes, schools and communities in eight locations. Welcome to this edition of Operation Zero, our contribution to the national development agenda. In this issue, we focus on the socio-economic dimension of the areas we have visited. Our methodology is a thematic synthesis of interviews and visits with data analysis. We hope you will find our observations in 8 areas – contained in 16 pages – both helpful and enlightening. Our Operation Zero teams visited eight areas, which registered the highest dropout rate and poverty incidence on a 50-50 weight ratio (based on the latest data from the Department of Education and the National Statistics Coordination Board) and excluding areas deliberated to be high-risk. Shown below are the details of the ground visits and the team composition: Corridor Province Area Date visited Operation Zero Team Northern Mindanao Bukidnon Valencia September 16-18 Vernie Chris A. Zabala Michael R. Eijansantos Davao Davao Oriental Lupon September 11-13 Hazel Grace V. Apa Gabrielle Denise A. Aragon Western Visayas Antique Anini-y September 18-20 Meriam Lorraine H. Gaviola Kim Charmaine Q. Cortez Eastern Visayas Eastern Samar Guiuan September 11-13 Ruben D. Simon, Jr. Marion Immanuel Ossi E. Amahan Central Visayas Negros Oriental Valencia September 16-18 Belvin L. Armenion Carlo Enrico L. Rivera Caraga Agusan del Sur Talacogon September 18-20 Arjay J. Elnas Eduardo Y. Boyose Cagayan Valley Quirino Diffun September 25-27 Cherren G. Lataza Wella Lou B. Tandingan MIMAROPA Marinduque Sta. Cruz September 16-18 Jose Isabelo R. Abella Mark Daniel S. Dionisio-See Our teams visited the homes of the borrowers of the Zero Dropout Education Scheme (ZeDrEs)1 to gain first-hand experience of their living conditions and learn how the program has helped the beneficiaries gain access to primary education. The teams validated whether the education loans granted to them were actually used for its primary purpose, i.e., to send their identified beneficiaries to school. Schools were also visited by the Operation Zero teams to know about their school enrollment, class performance, and attendance. Finally, local officials, school heads and local business organizations were also visited and engaged in discussions. The teams wanted to assess and gather insights on what still needs to be done to improve the local socio-economic status. The process involved analyses and exchange of information, with the objective of putting into proper context the data and definitions being used for policy formulation and investment formation – and how developmental and economic issues can be properly framed using ground information. What are the stories behind these numbers? Grassroots immersion is essential to make sense of macro-economic data and social indicators. Our involvement in ZeDrEs includes financial audit, program validation, and improvement identification. One major issue we have to contend is on the definition of “Poorest of the Poor”, a key target segment of the program. What does “Poorest of the Poor” mean? Quantitative thresholds provide the most common measure. The World Bank considers people whose income is below the poverty is below the poverty line of US$ 1.25 per day (around Php 55) as poorest of the poor. In the Philippines, the microfinance industry uses US$2.50 (around Php 108) as the poverty threshold to better reflect the local context. Using a purely quantitative test, the families we visited and interviewed are technically poor although they would not strictly be considered “poorest of the poor”. The people we interviewed in Anini-y have modest shelter that technically don’t make them homeless, and either of the spouses have jobs to pay household expenses. In Lupon, the respondents have houses built in nipa or wood. Their main sources of livelihood are fishing, farming and sari-sari stores, with the income earned covering family expenses by a minimal margin since the cost of living in the area is relatively low. The people in Guiuan have astounding ecological resources (note: this is before Haiyan) and scenery but there is an infrastructure deficit and lack of enabling education that would have enabled them to transform their place into a vibrant eco-tourism destination. While quick, the use of quantitative threshold supplemented by observation adjustments is dangerous and creates more unintended consequences. Quantitative approaches tend to lead to silo solutions and reinforce biases and mental models2 (e.g., poverty as a reflection of indolence), especially when the issue being tackled is a multi-dimensional phenomenon (Seep Network 2006) and involves systemic factors. It is at this point that we need to link the ground stories we have gathered and take a ‘systems think’ approach to understanding macro-economic data and social indicators that are interdependently used for policy making and investment decisions. Let’s look at the family balance sheet of “Mrs. Vina Jose” of Diffun, Quirino, 32 years old and a farmer. Unlike most farmers in her municipality, she hires workers to help her in planting rice grains. She also plants vegetables and raises pigs for a living. The land that she used to plant crops was mortgaged to their family when one of their neighbors borrowed money from them. The growing period of the rice grains takes 5-6 months. Every harvest, she is able to sell the produce at around Php 40 thousand, with direct labor and input costs amounting to Php 15 thousand per cycle. Her OFW husband remits Php 15 thousand for the family’s monthly household expenses. In combining the (hopefully) steady monthly inflow of of Php 15 thousand from her husband and seasonal revenue of Php 40 thousand, the Jose household’s monthly revenue on the average is Php 21,667. Now let’s look at the corridor balance sheet of Cagayan Valley, which covers the provinces of Quirino, Batanes, Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, and Aurora. In 2011, GRDP amounted to Php 105 billion with per capita at Php 32 thousand, while the Industry Agriculture Services (IAS) mix is 10:40:50. Total population stood at 3.2 million (2010), and while unemployment stood at 3.3%, underemployment was high at 15.6%. In January 2013, the Cagayan Valley corridor registered overseas employment of 136,000. Incidentally, Quirino ranked 13th among the Top 20 provinces susceptible to landslides. The nature of the Jose family household revenue clearly has its risks, given the nature of the revenue sources. The Cagayan corridor’s balance sheet is also subject to systemic and disruption risks, judging from its developmental state and geography. We went back to the other ground stories and related these to the corridor-level data and repeated the process using loop and iteration. In addition to the socio-economic state, we also looked at the political and financial sector profile. From the ground immersion, here’s the broadening context of the locations visited by the Operation Zero Teams. Corridor (2011 data) Regional Gross Domestic Product (in billions) Population (in millions) Per Capita (in thousands) Municipality Sampled Northern Mindanao PhP 217 4.3 PhP 49 Valencia, Bukidnon Davao 225 4.5 50 Lupon, Davao Oriental Western Visayas 238 7.0 33 Anini-y, Antique Eastern Visayas 152 4.0 36 Guiuan, Eastern Samar Central Visayas 366 6.8 53 Valencia, Negros Oriental Caraga 69 2.4 28 Talacogon, Agusan del Sur Cagayan Valley 105 3.2 32 Diffun, Quirino MIMAROPA 106 2.7 38 Sta. Cruz, Marinduque Total PhP 1,480 34.9 PhP 42 Let’s put the GDP at that time at around Php 10 trillion. This means that the combined RGDP of the eight corridors account for 15%. Assuming a population of 92.5 million, per capita roughly stands at Php 108 thousand – now compare this with the average per capita of Php 42 thousand for the 8 corridors. Even without looking at measures like Gini coefficient, we are certain that the next issue to be raised is income disparity. But we would like to go back to the ground stories and let all subsequent and future conversations unfold from there. Valencia, Bukidnon, which is also called the “Land of Golden Harvest”, reported a 200% self-sufficiency in rice but ironically has incidences of malnutrition cases. In one school that reported a drop-out rate of more than 10%, a study showed that the main cause of is malnutrition. Of around 7,000 students in the same school, over 1,200 students are identified as malnourished. Another reason for drop-out is child labor. Some pupils sleep at school to work at night. We took note of the location’s public-private sector programs such as feeding and alternative education approaches, with mobile teachers being sent once a week to far away communities to teach. Some areas have inadequate or unstable power supply. An evening interview in Talacogon, Agusan del Sur, had to be conducted outside the home of a beneficiary because of a brownout. From ground observations and data on different corridors, we learned more about insolvent or mismanaged cooperatives across the country. Electricity is vital to any corridor’s development, and more so if industrialization is in its plan. We observed more recurring and contradictory themes. There is a persistent correlation between poverty index and the level of basic education drop-outs in the locations, and a direct relationship with the developmental stage of the corridor where the municipality or city visited is located. One can be easily disappointed and disheartened with what we have seen and learned - but there are also shoots of hope, with the initiatives and starting steps being done to solve these. One example is in Valencia, Negros Oriental, where the local government unit allocated to the Special Education Fund 25% of its tax collection, which is buoyed clearly with the presence of a geothermal power plant. This fund can be used for the operation and maintenance of public schools and school infrastructure, educational research, purchase of books and periodicals, and sports developments. We strongly encourage you to read through the stories of our Operation Zero team. At this stage, with our approach and analysis, we can make qualified assessments on what are the areas of urgent and immediate focus for both the public and private sectors and peoples’ organizations. As a start, we need to reframe development and social spending as investments in outcomes rather than as costs. From a business standpoint, we need to remember that prosperity is generally tracked by banking, which follows trade flows. The ‘velocity’ of trade flows is a function of development and mobility. Development progresses with the presence and use of shared roadmaps and credit and investment enablers. Mobility is a function of integrated supply chains, infrastructure and connectivity. In bridging the income disparity, development must be given priority. The focus is less on narrowing the income gap per se, but to make the needed investments to elevate those in the bottom of the pyramid while being mindful of the unintended issue of the ‘middle-class trap’. By investments in outcomes, we mean our people become economically productive by being able to make sound decisions and be accountable for their decisions. From this operating principle, we would like to contribute three points to the national development agenda. We would be glad to engage with like-minded and similarly-impassioned on these points. 1. Zero drop-out for primary education;. 2. Investments in livelihood and skills development; and, 3. Corridor approach to economic planning and business development. In closing, we ask you to take a look at our cover photo again. It is really a call on our young from around the world to bring and harness their talent and energy to the countryside. Notice also how one of our colleagues was being aided by the boat guide. While the youth may not have the answer to the problems besetting our society, they have the creativity and enthusiasm that can give us our long-overdue economic liberation – with the wisdom of the elders and the guidance of the local community. If you wish to contribute your insights and experiences, please contact me at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 13:35:52 +0000
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