Today, 02 July 2024, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) will present to the Cabinet the proposed Php6.352 Trillion budget for 2025.
Anchored on the theme, “Agency for Prosperity: Fulfilling the Needs and Aspirations of the Filipino People,” the proposed 2025 budget – which is 10.1% higher than this year’s Php5.768 Trillion – aims to develop and protect the capabilities of individuals and families, transform production sectors to generate more quality jobs and produce competitive products, and foster an enabling environment encompassing institutions, physical and natural environment.
The proposed 2025 budget comes at the heels of a recent World Bank (WB) report showing that the Philippines trails behind its peers in Southeast Asia in human capital development.
“The Philippines Human Capital Review: Investing in the Early Years to Boost Human Potential,” released last Monday, 24 June 2024, mentioned that as the Philippines approaches upper-middle-income-country status, which has been a subject in an earlier column (See Upper Middle-Income Country, 30 May 2024), substantial investments in human capital are crucial to achieve outcomes typical of nations in this economic category.
The multilateral institution gave the country a Human Capital Index (HCI) of 0.52 – lower than Indonesia’s 0.54, Malaysia’s 0.61, Vietnam’s 0.69 – indicating that children born in the Philippines in 2020 can only achieve 52% of their potential productivity by the time they reach the age of 18.
Having said this, it is important that the government invests in the development of children in their first 10 years of life.
While there is nothing new in the World Bank report, government should put money where their mouth is. We look forward to seeing an expansion in human capital investments in the areas of health, education and skills training, and other social services in the National Expenditure Program that the DBM will submit to Congress on 29 July 2024, which is one week after the President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr’s third State-of-the-Nation Address.
This early, we are glad to hear from DBM Secretary and Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) Chair Amenah F. Pangandaman – my principal during my stint as director in the DBM – saying that part of next year’s budget is an expanded Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).
4Ps, which provides cash aid to some 4.4. million families, would now include a grant to first 1,000 days children (F1KD) of beneficiaries who are pregnant, nursing, or those with two-year-old children following the President’s instruction to widen the coverage of 4Ps during a sectoral meeting last 11 June 2024.
We have been told time and again that the youth is the hope of the nation. Thus, we have to unleash our country’s potential by investing in human capital and ensuring that they are healthy and productive.
Let us start from our children who are disadvantaged from birth.
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Dennis Ting is a former director at the Department of Budget and Management.
