Implementation Processes for Program Development
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The document summarizes Philippine development plans from the 1950s to the 2000s. It discusses the key visions, goals, and instruments of each plan. The plans initially focused on post-war rehabilitation and industrialization. Later plans emphasized poverty reduction, human development, and good governance. More recent plans provide clearer strategies and are therefore likely more effective to implement compared to earlier ambiguous plans. Overall, the document traces the evolution of development planning in the Philippines over several decades.
Implementation Processes for Program Development
- 1. Mohammad Faheem M. Aliuden, CE, MPA
- 2. Rehabilitation and Industrial Development, 1950s The first of the development plans formulated for the Philippines was the Five-Year Program of Rehabilitation and Industrial Development (1949- 1953), also called the Cuaderno Plan of 1949. Formulated under President Manuel Roxas and carried out for the most part under the leadership of President Elpidio Quirino, and reflecting the needs of the times, the Plan sketched the country’s vision of development as reconstructing and rehabilitating the economy, which had been devastated by war. It identified the objectives of the plan as the need “to adjust the Philippine economy to the situation after 1954 (when US Government payments would have declined),” and “to better enable the country to make the structural adjustments necessary in the transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy with a minimum dependence on outside markets.” For instrument, it proposed an investment bill amounting to P1,730 million to go into “dollar-producing” and “dollar- saving” enterprises consisting of agricultural and industrial projects, transportation and communication facilities, public works, housing, mining enterprises, and miscellaneous and minor industry projects.
- 3. Integrated Socioeconomic Development, 1960s The most comprehensive and perhaps most “revolutionary” of the development plans was the Five-Year Integrated Socioeconomic Program for the Philippines (1961-1964), launched in the administration of President Diosdado Macapagal. Its vision remained the prosperity of the people and its principal goal the expansion of the gross domestic product by the compound rate of 6 percent per year over the 1961-1965 period. To achieve this goal, its principal instrument was an annual investment of P2,410 million or a total of P12,053 over the plan period. This investment was to come from domestic saving, which must increase from 12.7 percent of gross income in 1960 to about 16 percent by 1965. What domestic saving could not finance, some 11 percent of the programmed investment would come from foreign investment. Other instruments for plan execution were monetary, fiscal, and trade policies.
- 4. Liberalization and Freedom of the Market, 1970s The Four-Year Development Plan FY 1972-1975, under President Ferdinand Marcos had two distinguishing characteristics: (1) its espousal of a new development strategy and (2) its use, for the first time in Philippine planning, of a formally specified macroeconomic model to underpin its estimates. The Plan carried about the same vision and goals as previous plans: higher per capita income (with GNP increasing at an average rate of 6.9 percent and per capita income increasing at an average of 3.7 percent, assuming a constant 3.1 percent increase in population), greater employment, more equitable income distribution, internal stability, and regional industrialization and development.
- 5. Poverty Alleviation and People Power, 1980s The Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan 1987- 1992 under the administration of President Corazon Aquino had the same vision as previous plans—the uplift and prosperity of the people. For the first time, however, the alleviation of poverty was mentioned as a major goal. Other goals were: the generation of more productive employment, the promotion of equity and social justice, and the attainment of sustainable economic growth where sustainable economic growth was defined as growth of the gross national product at 6.8 percent per year on the average.
- 6. Human Development and International Competitiveness, the 1990s The vision that illumined the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan 1993-1998, prepared in the administration of President Fidel Ramos, was the same as that which motivated previous plans—prosperity for Filipinos and the uplift of many from the clutches of poverty. The Plan cast the goal in positive terms, however: “The goal of all economic development efforts is the development of the human person and the improvement of the quality of life . . . For the majority of Filipinos at this time, human development is synonymous with the attainment of the most basic needs, such as being well nourished an free from avoidable diseases, being adequately sheltered and clothed, being educated, having resources sufficient to provide for the needs of the next generation, being physically safe, and being politically empowered to deal with one’s social circumstances.” The Plan added that human development and the alleviation of poverty are best achieved through the efforts of people themselves. These goals are also attained faster when domestic producers are internationally competitive, it said.
- 7. Good Governance and the Rule of Law, 2000s The vision of development has not changed, which is the uplift of the people to a life of prosperity and dignity but the overriding objective of the Medium- Term Philippine Development Plan (2001-2004), prepared under the leadership of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has changed. It is now expanded to include the eradication of poverty as a major goal. The goal has four components, namely, (a) macroeconomic stability with equitable growth based on free enterprise, (b) agriculture and fisheries modernization with social equity, (c) comprehensive human development and protection for the vulnerable, and (d) good governance and the rule of law.
- 8. Effectiveness of Implementation The effectiveness of plan implementation cannot be judged from the plan itself for the simple reason that it is “outside” of the plan— referring to the decisions and actions of the people carrying out the plan in the real world. To an extent, however, it can be inferred from the plan. Plans that are specific in their description of goals, strategies, and instruments and definite in their reference to sectors and subsectors lend themselves more easily to successful implementation than plans of general orientation, because they provide the implementer with clear and unambiguous programs of action on ground level. A review of the development plans focused on their specificity, clarity, and degree of detail suggests that plans of recent years pass the review more easily than those of earlier decades. More recent plans, beginning with that for the 1990s and including the current one, give clearer, less ambiguous, more definitive descriptions of the strategies and instruments they espouse than their predecessors. Thus, it can be said that plan implementation in the country has improved.
- 9. Reference Jurado, G.M. Growth Models, Development Planning, and Implementation in the Philippines. Philippine Journal of Development Number 55, Volume XXX, No. 1, First Semester 2003.