policy
Enroute to an indigenous Agta-Dumagat community in the Northeastern Philippines
I started my professional life as an advocacy strategist, and a commitment to policy engagement still drives much of my academic work. Today, I bridge the divide between academia and the policy world through public-purpose data science initiatives that sharpen our understanding of pressing public issues, while giving actionable knowledge to policymakers, civil society reformers, and responsible business. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I headed socio-economic modeling efforts for FASSSTER, an epidemiological forecasting system extensively used by the Philippine government in its pandemic efforts. At present, I’m leading the OpenAudit project with a dedicated team of governance researchers, practitioners, and accountability advocates.
I’m currently focused on challenges concerning (1) rethinking global development strategy; (2) strengthening accountable and multi-level governance systems; and (3) countering democratic erosion— all in the context of the ongoing AI/digital revolution. I’m committed to supporting efforts that share these goals, so feel free to drop me a line if you’re working on the same issues.
selected commissioned reports
"The services transition, platform capitalism, and the path to illiberal populism: insights from the Philippines" in Understanding the drivers of political polarization and social exclusion in Southeast Asia. Open Society Foundations. 2023. (with Enrico Antonio La Viña)
This paper dissects the confluence of factors that led to democratic erosion in the Philippines, focusing on the interplay of premature deindustrialization, the rise of platform capitalism, and the dynamics of illiberal populism. Understanding the peculiarities of the Philippines' situation provides critical insights into the broader narrative of global democratic erosion and its economic drivers. Compared to other treatments of the populist upsurge in the Philippines, we highlight premature deindustrialization (Rodrik, 2015; Tregenna, 2015) as well as other political-economic and socio-spatial factors, as pivotal in shaping the political landscape of the Philippines. To that end, this paper delves into the shift towards a service-oriented knowledge economy, a transition that notably skipped the development of a robust manufacturing sector, resulting in the emergence of new kinds of social classes– and the subsequent political and economic implications that such a transition has wrought. Over the past decade, these newly formed classes, residing in precarious urban environments, have arisen as a fertile demographic for anti-establishment and populist appeals by outsiders to the prevailing liberal-democratic order. In shared though distinct ways, leaders like Duterte and Marcos Jr. capitalized on the insecurities and anxieties of these groups, promising discipline and order amidst economic and social upheaval.
"The Political Economy of Philippine Healthcare: Paving the Road to Universal Health". The Asia Foundation (Coalitions for Change Program). 2023. (with Dr. Dennis Batangan and Basilio Claudio)
Since the late 2000s, the Philippines has witnessed a dramatic acceleration of its growth trajectory as well as a wave of unprecedented policy reforms for its healthcare sector. Yet while these developments have ushered decisive advances in the resourcing, organization, and priorities of Philippine healthcare, the country’s overall record in improving health outcomes have continued to be mixed relative to the country’s neighbors. In this report, we adopt a political economy lens to examine the political and institutional underpinnings of the Philippines’ underwhelming health performance, as well as to chart pathways towards more fully attaining universal healthcare in the post-COVID and post-Mandanas era. We likewise adopt multiple methods— including desk review, RTDs with major health players, and examination of secondary administrative and survey data— to inform our analysis of the healthcare sector. Our key focuses in this report include: (a) an up-to-date review of the Philippines’ persisting mixed record in terms of health outcomes; (b) a survey of the political economy context of Philippine social and health policy evolution since the democratic transition in the mid-1980s; (c) a thematic assessment of Philippine healthcare institutional arrangements; (d) an analysis of local, national, and global political economy drivers shaping health outcomes and; (e) policy recommendations for improving Philippine healthcare in light of contemporary developments.
"From Dependency to Autonomy: Local Governance, Fiscal Capacity, and the Outlook for Philippine Local Governments in the post-COVID era" in Decentralization, Digitalization, and Development: Strengthening Local Governance for Recovery, Resilience, and the Sustainable Development Goals. United Nations Development Program. 2023. (Lead flagship report chapter, with Rico La Viña)
The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Philippines have produced a report to identify the strategic areas where local capacities can be built to respond to and recover from future crises in line with the current transition of local governments to full decentralization under the Mandanas-Garcia Supreme Court (SC) Ruling, and considering the impact of the COVID-19 on local government units (LGUs). The report aims to articulate insights on the preparedness of the Philippines for the Mandanas-Garcia Supreme Ruling transition and its implications on the ability of the country to respond to -- and recover from -- various forms of crisis, identify strategic areas of development support for LGUs, citizens, and the private sector so that stakeholders stand the best possible chance of reaching the best-case scenario by 2030, and unlock investments in strategic areas of capacity-building support.
"The impact of trade on employment in the Philippines: A country report" International Labour Organization. 2019 (with Alvin Ang and Nathalie Custodio)
The report presents a comprehensive picture of how trade policies have impacted decent work outcomes in the Philippines, and how, based on empirical data and evidence, the links between trade policy and decent work principles can be strengthened so that benefits more Filipinos. In the absence of an integrated approach in trade and employment policies, a country is unlikely to achieve inclusive growth; sustainable and equitable development; and decent, gainful, and productive employment for all. As one of the fastest-growing economies in the world today, the Philippines needs to sustain its upward economic momentum while also capitalizing on its current growth gains to finally resolve serious and long-standing socio-economic issues, such as worsening poverty, high unemployment, low wages, increasing prices and costs, and widening social inequalities, among others. Reviewing its trade and employment strategies and policies thus, becomes necessary for the country.
"The State of Philippine Urbanization in 2019: Growth and Governance in the New Urban Economy". Asian Development Bank. 2019. (with Dr. Alvin Ang and Justin Valle)
In 2015, the Philippines achieved a demographic milestone, wherein more Filipinos finally resided in urban than rural areas. As a result, the country has joined the ranks of nations with majority of their populations dwelling in cities, even as there has been a groundswell of interest in the developmental potential of urban growth. This paper surveys the opportunities as well as the challenges presented by these developments in the Philippine urban landscape. On one hand, recent trends attest to the intensifying concentration of populations and economic activity in urban regions, as well as the diffusion of Philippine urban economic activity and opportunities towards new growth poles, especially, though not only, in the Manila mega-urban periphery. Yet major obstructions to reaping the dividends of this transformation persist. We find most of these difficulties are observed to be related to governance gaps in the form of weak institutional frameworks as well as critical capacity deficits among urban governance actors. Though a number of high-performing urban nodes have emerged since the 1986 restructuring of the country’s urban regime, governance effectiveness has been uneven in practice, even as improvements in the administrative, planning, and service-delivery performance of local government units (LGUs) have been “sluggish” (Capuno 2005; Porio 2012). Left unaddressed, such constraints risk overwhelming urbanizing areas with the diseconomies, costs and risks of ill-planned and ill-managed urban transitions.