An Analysis on the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022

Adrian Turay

INTRODUCTION

Planning is one of any governing body’s most useful tool. Starting from when the ancient

Chinese used intricate planning to outmaneuver their opponents as detailed in Sun Tzu’s Art of

War, to when the Romans used urban planning in the founding, construction, expansion, and

infrastructural maintenance of their nucleated settlements1, to the recent successful planning of

New Zealand in eliminating the COVID-19 virus in their own place, proper planning proves to be

a crucial part of any action of governance. According to Mark Schultz of Governance Today

(2021), the goal of the strategic planning process is to concentrate on "goals rather than

means." It allows organizations to imagine and construct their ideal future rather than waiting

and having to deal with whatever the future throws at them at the time. And history proves these

to be true.

Proper planning is very useful however it is not easy. Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber

(1973) in the Public Administration classic Dilemmas in a general theory of planning explains

that there are four major factors that challenges public administration planning which are goal

formulation, problem definition, wicked planning problems, and social context.2 These

challenges still rise against modern planning actions.

1
See Sewell J. (2014) Urban Planning, Roman. In: Smith C. Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology for more
information on Roman urban planning.
2
See Classics of Public Administration by Shafritz and Hyde (2015) for more of the Public Administration Classics
such as Rittel and Webber’s.
In the Philippine landscape of public administration, a prominent planning action is the

Philippine Development Plan (PDP). It is a medium-term plan from 2017 to 2022 based on the

incumbent (as of writing) Duterte administration’s 0-10 point Socioeconomic Agenda and the

Ambisyon 2040. The Philippine Development Plan was initially put into motion on 2017 as the

administration started its term. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was re-adjusted.

Philippine Development Plan is anchored in Ambisyon 2040 and in the administration’s 0-10

point agenda. Ambisyon 2040 is a long term vision that states by 2040, Filipinos enjoy a

strongly rooted (matatag), comfortable (maginhawa), and secure life (panatag na buhay).

Ambisyon 2040 has two vision focuses, vision for self and vision for the country. The vision for

the self sets the vision for Filipino individuals by 2040. There are three main categories of

Filipinos that are involved in the vision, the very poor, the poor, and the middle income. The

vision for the very poor is for them to reach economic sustainability to feed themselves three

times a day. The poor is envisioned to buy all their necessities. And the middle income is

envisioned to buy their wants and desires. The ultimate “ambisyon” is that nobody is poor,

nobody is destitute, and nobody is hungry in the Philippines by 2040. The vision for the country

sets the envisioned state of the Philippines by 2040 with prosperity for all, proper healthcare,

sustainable education, just and fair society, and strong families.

The 0-10 point socioeconomic agenda on the other hand enumerates the administration’s main

objectives. The 11 points are to bring peace and order; to continue and maintain current

macroeconomic policies, including fiscal, monetary, and trade policies; to institute progressive

tax reform and more effective tax collection, indexing taxes to inflation; to Increase

competitiveness and the ease of doing business; to accelerate annual infrastructure spending to

account for 5% of GDP, with Public-Private Partnerships playing a key role; to Promote rural and
value chain development toward increasing agricultural and rural enterprise productivity and

rural tourism; to ensure security of land tenure to encourage investments, and address

bottlenecks in land management and titling agencies; to Invest in human capital development,

including health and education systems, and match skills and training to meet the demand of

businesses and the private sector; to promote science, technology, and the creative arts to

enhance innovation and creative capacity towards self-sustaining, inclusive development; to

improve social protection programs, including the government’s Conditional Cash Transfer

program, to protect the poor against instability and economic shocks; and to strengthen

implementation of the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law to enable

especially poor couples to make informed choices on financial and family planning.

With the plethora of goals that the current Philippine government have, there is a necessity for

prioritization and strategic planning to have a chance to achieve at least some, ideally all, of the

goals. The PDP 2017-2022 becomes the administration’s instrument for doing so. The

administration through the power of the executive department actually institutionalized the said

goals and plans through Executive Orders 5, 27, and 31 which solidifies Ambisyon 2040, PDP

2017-2022, and 0-10 Point Agenda respectively.

The administration’s main planning tool, PDP 2017-2022 has three main approaches which are

Malasakit, Pagbabago, and Patuloy Na Pag-Unlad. Malasakit aims to enhance the Filipino

social fabric. Pagbabago aims to provide inequality-reducing transfrormation. Patuloy Na

Pag-unlad aims to increase growth potential of the economy.

As of 2021, the administration is a year away from its 2022 end goal. It is very important to

analyze what has happened, what is happening, what would likely happen, and what would be

bound to happen in the final months of the middle term plan. As unfortunate as it is, there must
be factors that must be fully realized before analyzing the effects, or its absence, of the

Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022. The current government climate and its actions

regardless of which, or even without, partisan point of view is highly political. A study by Ateneo

de Manila University School of Government shows that the Duterte administration is ranked third

in most laws passed post martial-law administrations with 139 laws were passed during the 17th

and 18th Congress. But the study also shows that President Duterte failed to pass some of its

key legislation promises and that the volume did not correspond to a better Filipino quality of

living.3 Another factor to take consideration of is the inefficiencies that government units, both

from the local level and the national level, commit. These come in form of red tape, inadequate

services, and corruption of different scales. And lastly, all these have the backdrop of the

horrifying global COVID-19 pandemic that exposed the capability of Filipino governance.

BODY

The Philippines by 2016 was exhibiting a 6.9% economic growth according to the Philippine

Statistics Authority. It showed significant growth in the Industry and Services sector. But

Agriculture, Hunting, Forestry and Fishing (AHFF) was still on decline; proving that the

Philippine economy is still trying to shift from an agricultural economy to an industrialized one.

Even though the industry and service sectors are improving, the decline on AHFF is still

detrimental to the state of Filipino quality of living.11.06 million Filipinos are employed under the

agricultural sector that comprised 27 percent of the national employment by 2016, if the sector’s

output is continuously on decline, it would be fair to infer that the quality of living of the people

depending on it is not great.

3
Read Malonda’s article “Duterte Gov’t, Third In Most Laws Passed Post-Martial Law” at
http://ateneo.edu/aps/asog/news/duterte-5-laws
The early half of 2010’s also saw one of the Philippine’s most violent years. By 2013, the

country’s homicide rate was the highest in Asia and the 11th highest in the entire world. This

prompted fear and uncomfortability in the streets and communities around the nation.

Methamphetamine (shabu) illegal trade and abuse is also rampant which posed problem with

the nation’s health and security. By this time too, corruption is a harrowing concern in the

country with the decade’s corruption story of Pork Barrel Scam exploding in 2013.

The Duterte campaign was the perfect storm to the drought of Filipino issues. In an article

published by TIME magazine4, it is detailed how Filipinos thought of the Duterte administration’s

agenda as the quick fix to the different societal issues in the nation. What is the agenda

anyway?

The Mechanisms of PDP 2017-2022

As mentioned before, the nature of the current actions and climate of the government is highly

political, thus the necessity to analyze the start of it which was the 2016 elections. The Duterte

campaign promised a lot of brazen actions to be taken that will, in theory, improve Filipino lives;

much of which are still inculcated in Ambisyon 2040 and the 0-10 point agenda. The PDP

2017-2022 then serves as the action plan to achieve all the promises, goals, and visions of the

administration. The Philippine Development Plan of 2017-2022 has a three pronged mechanism

approach to meet its end goals which are Malasakit, Pagbabago, and Patuloy na Pag-unlad.

4
See Jenkins, N. (2016, May 10). Why Did the Philippines Just Elect a Guy Who Jokes About Rape as Its President?
Time. https://time.com/4324073/rodrigo-duterte-philippines-president-why-elected/Time.
https://time.com/4324073/rodrigo-duterte-philippines-president-why-elected/
 Figure 1. Strategic Framework to Ensure Responsive, People-centered, Technology-enabled,and Clean Governance

The Malasakit mechanism aiming to build a high-trust society has three major goals of ensuring

responsive, people-centered, technology-enabled, and clean governance, pursuing swift, fair,

and humane administration of justice, and promoting Philippine Culture and Values towards

Bayanihan. The first goal of ensuring responsive, people-centered, technology-enabled, and

clean governance has a four part strategic framework which are broadened participatory

governance, ensured seamless service delivery, developed smart and resilient public

organizations and future-ready public servants, and strengthened public accountability and

integrity. This framework and its goal can be traced back to the administration’s promise to cull

corruption and promote better public service. Bureaucracy is not inherently bad, most processes

are in fact vital for governance. But one way to overcome the challenge to cull corruption and

promote better public service is to find ways in reducing unnecessary bureaucratic steps in

providing delivery of public service. One of the minor successes that Philippine governance

actually achieved is in this area. The successful legislation of the Anti-Red Tape Authority

(ARTA) under RA is testament to the Filipino thirst for less bureaucratic but a more

service-oriented government.

The Pagbabago mechanism on the other hand aims to transform towards Equity and Resiliency

with seven major goals of (1) expanding economic opportunities in agriculture, forestry, and

fisheries and ensuring food security, (2) expanding economic opportunities in industry, (3)

expanding economic opportunities in services, (4) expanding access to economic opportunities

in i&s for startups, MSMES, and cooperatives, (5) human capital development towards greater

agility, (6) ensuring food resiliency and reducing vulnerabilities of Filipinos, (7) and building safe,

resilient, and sustainable communities. This mechanism of PDP has the most number of goals.
A notable, and a controversial, piece of legislation passed under this mechanism is the Rice

Tariffication Law of 2018.

Patuloy na Pag-unlad on the other hand aims to increase the Philippine growth potential by

achieving two goals. First is by reaching for the demographic dividend across all regions and

second is by vigorously advancing science, technology, and innovation. This mechanism of PDP

2017-2022 focuses on pushing forward the improvement of the underdeveloped communities

around the nation.

Aside from the three main mechanisms that the PDP 2017-2022 promotes, it also has four

bedrock strategies that serves as the foundation for all the plans and actions. The first bedrock

strategy is ensuring peace and safety. This strategy is a trademark of the Duterte administration

being an authoritarian regime. A notable legislative adherence to the plan is the passage of the

Revised Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Act or Republic Act (RA) 10349

that ensures the allocation of funds for the build-up of aircraft, vessels, and materiel to enable

the country to attain a more credible defense posture. And the PDP 2017-2022 also mentions

initiatives to strengthen adherence to the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the

Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The second bedrock strategy of the PDP 2017-2022 is to accelerate infrastructure development.

This strategy can now be commonly attributed to the Build, Build, Build initiative of the

administration. It aims to build more infrastructure that are, according to the administration’s

data, likely to equate better quality of living for Filipinos. Notable developments include

extension of the Light Rail Train System with two more additional stations to the Rizal area and

attempts for modernization of public transportation such as the BEEP E-Jeepneys.

Ensuring Security, Public Order, and Safety is the third bedrock strategy of the PDP 2017-2022.

Although almost the same with the first bedrock strategy, the PDP does not shy away from

further strengthening the plans for security, order, and safety. This strategy tackles the efforts to

suppress more crime. It also notes to adopt a “holistic approach” to tackling the illegal drug

problem in the country.

The last of the four bedrock strategies is ensuring ecological integrity, clean and healthy

environment which aims to intensify the protection, conservation, and rehabilitation of natural

resources and accelerate the adoption of innovative technologies for enforcement and

monitoring of wildlife and habitat. The strategy is very relevant as the constant disregard for

environmental protection seems to be reflecting back on the effects of natural events such as

typhoons, droughts, and other nature induced phenomena. Yet there were little to no real

legislative nor administrative actions to reach the goals mentioned in the plan.

The Stakeholders of Philippine Development Plan

The mechanisms of the Philippine Development Plan are detailed and packed of strategic

frameworks to see wanted results. Yet again, a plan’s success nor failure cannot be analyzed in

the words, numbers, and figures within the plan but can be seen from its effects on its

stakeholders. The true analysis of this paper shall come from the effects received, or the

absence thereof, by the stakeholders of the plan.

The first stakeholder to analyze is the Filipino worker. The Philippine Development Plan, in

accordance with Ambisyon 2040 aims to improve the quality of life of a Filipino worker in

different levels. The first level is job security. The administration has a lot of political poses that

rallies up the support and adherence of the people over the years. One of which is the promise

to end “endo” or the contractualization of Filipino workers. To quote Ambisyon 2040, “Life is
unstable when income is unstable.”. It identifies job security as a necessity to achieve prosperity

for all. As true as it is, the administration had crafted a plan that tries to achieve prosperity but

does not try to solve the problem of contractualization at all. In fact, you cannot find the word

“job security” in either the updated PDP 2017-2022 or the original copy as it was never

mentioned. This failure to deliver by the plan, and the architects of the plan, shows a lack of

prioritization.

Another level of improvement promised for a Filipino worker is a living wage. There were wage

improvements in some of the working sectors of Filipino society such as the uniformed

personnel, the teachers, and public servants but these are mostly due to the fact that these

sectors are very vocal and have actual power to pressure the legislature in creating these laws

for them. But at the end of the day, not every Filipino worker belongs to those three categories.

Medical workers’ wages were in fact not prioritized to be improved even if they serve as the

spine of Philippine health even before the COVID-19 pandemic. It needed a pandemic for the

majority of people to see their importance and the importance of them having a sustainable

wage. And even then, the best that the government can do is provide them mediocre

allowances while preparing to spend more money on military investments.

Aside from the lack of desired effect, programs from PDP 2017-2022 also has undesired indirect

effects to the Filipino workers. The Build, Build, Build initiative of the administration is a decent

goal with a rushed plan. To be able to cater for the BBB’s financial necessity, taxes are

increased through the TRAIN Law. To be fair, the BBB has infrastructure programs that are very

helpful for citizens in Metro Manila and its nearby provinces due to increased transport mobility.

But then it is almost counterproductive to the goal to promote more jobs in the other parts of the

nation as the BBB’s programs are concentrated in the Metro Manila area. Thus workers from
other places and sectors such as agriculture have to shoulder the taxes for projects that they

wouldn’t really benefit from. This “bayanihan” sacrifice is very noble, but extremely unfair.

Another stakeholder is the Filipino family. The Philippine Development Plan explicitly calls out

the lack of Social Protection mechanisms in the Philippines. It also mentioned that the strategic

plan is to build socio economic resilience of people through provision of universal and

transformative social protection that will benefit the entire population. This plan is a sweet

promise for families to be able to have more security that the Philippine government and its

agencies will be able to help them during times of crises and help. Yet nearing the end of the

plan, there are still no real universal social protection mechanisms to lift Filipino families. An

argument might be that the COVID-19 pandemic might set aside the goal for a more universal

and helpful social protection program. But the COVID-19 pandemic is actually a perfect reason

to create such a mechanism. And yet many Filipino families faced the horrifying experience of

being diagnosed with the COVID-19 virus with little to no financial help from the existing social

protection agencies.

Under the PDP 2017-2022’s Pagbabago mechanism is the goal of expanding economic

opportunities in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries and ensuring food security. One of the

administration’s steps to try to achieve so is by implementing the Rice Tariffication Law of 2018.

The law removed quantitative restrictions on rice importation that enabled traders to import rice

as much as they can. The quantitative restrictions are replaced with tariffs that will also be part

of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund that will assist farmers in the long run.

However, this actually devastated farmer families. The PSA shows around Php 87 billion lost

income due to the plummet of local rice prices. In its early years, RTL was a program that

actually hurt the sector it was meant to help.

PDP 2017-2022 has a strategic plan for vigorously advancing Science, Technology, and

Innovation (STI). It identifies that the Philippines has a weak STI culture as well as low

government spending. The plan included a number of enhanced plans to improve Philippine

STI. But when the calamity of COVID-19 first struck, the government delayed its responses

amidst the medical-scientific effort of our Filipino scientists, doctors and even the general

public’s to advise the government of steps to combat the threat of the virus. The lack of

response and utilization of our medical-scientific resources resulted to a disaster that could’ve

been lessened, if not completely avoided. Filipino families are then subjected to face the lasting

effect of the pandemic from the physical toll of sick and dying family members, to the financial

distraught brought by the economic recession.

Another stakeholder is the future Philippine government. Whether the next administration is

going to be politically aligned with the current Duterte administration or not, there are a lot of

things that the Philippine Development Plan and its programs have already predetermined

effects. Ambisyon 2040 is a decent list of Filipino goals that needs to be achieved. PDP

2017-2022 has already had some of the programs in place. The Build, Build, Build initiative and

the COVID-19 responses are some of the programs that will still either be continued to be

implemented or funded or both. The next administration will also have the decision to either

re-align the priorities that the PDP 2017-2022 missed.

The Republic of the Philippines’ sovereignty and integrity is also a stakeholder for the effects of

the PDP 2017-2022 and its inefficiencies. The PDP 2017-2022 includes to uphold and protect

the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Philippines and yet fails to create substantial

actions to promote its integrity while being posed with threat in our oceans. At stake is the

Filipino integrity and the basic ability to fish in our oceans.

Conclusion

Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 is the current administration’s blueprint for its

governance. Thus its success can reflect some, if not most, of the administration’s performance.

The Philippine Development Plan and its implementation have three major problems. First is

misaligned priorities; second is too ambitious goals; and three is unutilized strategies.

The priorities of PDP 2017-2022 are misaligned mainly because of two things. There are a lot of

goals and the priorities are mostly politically driven. Just basing on recent events, the

Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 was given priority over COVID-19 responses for social support and

national vaccinations. Both fall under certain goals in the PDP, peace and safety and

pagbabago. But the imminent threat of the COVID-19 was least prioritized than the threat of

terrorism which was on decline since the pandemic. The recommendation would be for the

priorities to be set beforehand. It is understandable that growth and development in different

sectors are desired to reach the end goals, but the Philippines has only a limited amount of

resources to put into all of each at the same time. Therefore, effective non-political prioritization

would be optimal to reach the goals of a potentially successful plan such as PDP 2017-2022.

The Philippine Development Plan’s strategies for enabling their mechanisms are decent on their

own. However, the plan is designed in a way that all these strategies are supposed to work in

order to attain the goal. Although the strategies are good, the complexity of it all being

successful is a hard challenge to overcome especially considering that the current political

landscape of the Philippines has still some bureaucratic problems and issues of corruption that

hinders its maximum potential. An example of which is the Malasakit mechanism which has the

strategies of ensuring clean governance, pursuing swift administration of justice, and promoting

Philippine culture and values toward bayanihan. The ensurance of clean governance alone is a
hard goal that requires a lot of resources and focus to complete, and the decision to add the two

more hard goals in just one of the many mechanisms of the plan is too ambitious to achieve. An

alternative would be, trimming the strategies and focus on one or two per mechanism which will

enable more resources being funneled or focused into a goal rather than distributing resources

to different goals only to meet unfinished attempts.

The abundance of strategies in the Philippine Development Plan made it inevitable for some of

them to be unutilized to their full potential. The vigorous advancement of Science, Technology,

and Innovation under Patuloy na Pag-unlad is one of the examples. It had the potential to be

very useful for the government and the Filipino society. Its framework had both STI application

for agriculture as well as enhancement for technological generation and acquisition capacity. Yet

we the agricultural technology of the country is far from being given enough attention to, and the

necessity to implement improvements to the capacity for technological generation and

acquisition was only realized after the COVID-19 pandemic demanded more material and

technology for responses.

Planning is one of any governing body’s most useful tools. Used properly and followed with the

right implementation, it can create empires. But underutilized and misaligned, it can miss its

original end goals. The Philippine Development Plan of 2017-2022 may have the potential

strategies to lift the Philippine society, but its lackluster implementation and misaligned priorities

made it only a piece in a disorderly heap of administrative actions.

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