GSP Conference 2019: Urban Possibilities: Reimagining Philippines                        

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More than half of the world’s population currently lives in cities, where economic opportunity is concentrated and where there are dense social, business and political networks. With this density of opportunity comes policy challenges that have a profound impact on the prosperity and health of much of the world. 
This Governance Study Project (GSP) Conference is focused on governance issues in Metro Manila and Boracay Island. 
The Philippines is a country transition, making it a great illustrative case for the complexity of designing and implementing public policies for development. As an emerging economy, Philippines faces significant challenges relating to environmental sustainability, liveability and social inequality. 
The urban challenges of providing access to basic social services and constructing efficient transport infrastructure are made particularly stark by disasters. These issues also apply in Boracay Island, which was recently closed for a 6-month rehabilitation. As the country’s top tourist destination, Boracay’s rapid tourism development came at the expense of environmental sustainability and local community inclusion in economic activities. 
In this conference, students will rely on knowledge and skills learned throughout the MPA programme. The outcomes are detailed policy proposals based on rigorous primary and secondary research and analysis, which aims to make an impact on urban governance of this complex city. 
The MPA GSP course itself is conceived within a dialectic of growth and de-growth, presenting “sustainable development” not as a peaceable phrase that allows businesses to flourish, but as a real tension that requires us to put the brakes on, and rethink, human flourishing within planetary boundaries.

Conference Schedule

GSP conference schedule 2019

 

Session 1: People and Prosperity

Venue: Lobby, OTH Building
Time: 09:10 a.m. – 10:10 a.m.

Informality, Jobs and Street Vending in Philippines

Group Members: Chhi Goby Uy, Hedayetunnessa Palki Ahmad, Peggy Heng Swee Ching, Rosnita Binti Hamzah, Victor Ephraims Duruji

The Philippines’ economy has seen positive improvements in the recent years. However, growth is less inclusive than other countries in the region and the poverty rate stood at 21.6% in 2015. Poverty incidence is particularly prevalent in the informal sector where about 75% of the Philippines’ labor force are working and are vulnerable to various social as well as legal challenges. 

Building on the United Nation Sustainable Development Goal 8, which emphasizes economic inclusiveness, sustainability, and decent jobs, the team set out to propose a program to support informal workers, particularly street vendors in the Philippines. One the major challenges faced by the street vendors is the exclusion from the formal financial system. As such, the proposed program aims to provide easier access to and utilization of financial services and products to improve their financial condition, and equip them with skills to raise the quality of their jobs.

The program builds on a cross-sectoral collaboration approach, which includes national government agencies, local government units, financial institutions, and non-government organizations. The ultimate goal is not only to ensure financial inclusion for street vendors but also to address the issues of poverty alleviation, governance constraint, and policy gaps concerning street vendors in the Philippines. 

Empowering Indigenous persons for a better future  

Group Members: Akbar Ali, David Leonard Hatumena, Jung Minjeon Grace, Lionel Jonathan Louis, Richard Ofoe Kugblenu

In the face of minority tribes getting threatened and vanishing from the face of the earth, culminating in erasing completely the pieces of evidence of man’s early settlements, cultural values and social norms, it has become particularly important to seek ways by which little remnants of minority groups can be safeguarded and empowered.

In fulfilling the mandate of our project captioned’ ’Productive Employment for Indigenous People; Empowering Indigenous Persons for a Better Future’’ indigenous minority tribes of the Philippines were of major interest with a laser focus on the Ati tribe of Boracay.

Our findings were revealing and includes abject poverty, the lack of educational privileges and skills set. 

In seeking a solution to the above findings, the group compared other contexts and how minority tribes are being empowered and proposed a programme called IPASS (Indigenous Persons Achievements of Study and Skills). This programme will consolidate all the existing programme/initiatives by the Philippine Government and will include an incentive to have the indigenous communities’ self –empower and in turn be motivated to seek employment and further education.

We are of the fervent hope that the above proposal implemented to the letter will bring relief and a new lease of life to the indigenous folks of the Philippines, (particularly the Ati tribe) to provide them the needed leverage and equality to compete and fight for the good things of life.


Session 2: Institutions for Sustainability

Venue: Lobby, OTH Building
Time: 10:40 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.

Ensuring the Inclusive, Equitable, and Sustainable tourism of Boracay by empowering local citizens through business ownerships 

Group Members: Chan Yi Ngok Ayo, Kang Woojin, Rishi Kant, Saw Yu Shen, Tan Tai Huat

This paper explored the inequity in the access to economic opportunities available in Boracay’s tourism industry, uncovering the barriers and challenges that limit local citizens’ participation in the lucrative tourism industry. Utilising a host of methods, we identified the root cause of the problem as well as the underlying social, economic, political and structural constraints that reduced local citizens to manual labourers with minimal welfare benefits.

Our study found little evidence that the problem was a result of traditional market failure. Rather, it stemmed from a combination of regulatory and structural issues such as high barriers of entry for small business owners, weak competitive frameworks and a lack of support for small businesses. Our research pointed us to explore changes in existing structures and regulations that would facilitate a conducive environment to empower business owners to participate in the more profitable segments of the tourism industry. 

The proposed solutions were further refined to fit the local structure, context, and practices. A detailed implementation plan had also been included to guide the implementation.

Exploration of the various policy alternatives led us to the Boracay Social Investment Fund, an innovative policy solution that provide Boracay’s citizens ease of access to affordable funding, expert monitoring and mentoring, and capacity building. The success of the recommendations would be a win-win situation for the government, existing and new business owners, and most importantly, the local citizens, who are key to the sustainability of the tourism industry in Boracay.


Informal Settlers

Group Members: Ankur Agrawal, Lee Chean Chung, Lukas Cheah Phin, Nadem Hussain, Rachel Lee Shi Ying

Housing & Slums is one of the oldest, complex, and perennial problems many cities around the globe are facing, despite many efforts to eradicate it. Metro Manila is no exception – a staggering one-third (or 4 million) of the population live in slum settlements scattered within and along the fringes of urban centers.

Slum dwellers are a source of manpower for the urban districts, but they have exacerbated the social and environmental problems including overcrowding, sanitation and health issues, traffic congestion, and crime. Despite numerous interventions and investments by the Philippines government at all levels to address this issue, people continue to live in slums mainly because of better job prospects and unaffordable formal housing.  

Targeting SDG 11 (with the objective to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable), an innovative and cost-effective solution leveraging technology is proposed to address this policy problem. This policy recommendation is based on detailed and systematic exploration of the causes, discussion with government agencies, on site interviews with slum dwellers and think tanks, literature review and critical evaluation of the alternatives. We propose to develop an integrated mobile app for biometric registration of current slum dwellers for local authorities to have accurate records of “recognised” slum dwellers. By integrating it with micro-level job matching/skills training platform, potential slum dwellers could be distributed away from crowded slums to neighbouring cities with employment opportunities, thereby controlling further migration into slums and thus preventing deterioration of living conditions. 

Sanitation and Health – Rehabilitation of the Pasig River  

Group Members: Aremu Francis Oladewa, Ling Chen, Maulana Kasetra, Petrina Bey Hui Lin, Sriharsha Ganti

A clean and sustainable water system is one of the fundamental factors in social and economic development in most cities. As the main waterway of Manila, the Pasig River is the lifeline of the city by providing water for daily usage, production and transportation. However, because of rapid population growth, disorderly urbanization, and poor water management, the water quality of the river deteriorated severely in the 1990s, when it was declared biologically dead. The Philippines government thus undertook a series of measures, including river clean-ups and raising awareness. 

It is estimated that 65 percent of the pollution in Pasig River comes from household waste. In order to make the rehabilitation efforts sustainable, our team is focusing on promoting mindset and behavioral change through collaboration with different stakeholders. A stakeholder analysis was conducted to understand the challenges and the various stakeholders’ interests in the current rehabilitation efforts. We have looked at experiences of other countries in dealing with similar issues pertaining to river clean-up. 

We are excited to introduce our recommendations: (i) increase education and raise awareness on the importance of not littering; (ii) make it easy and convenient to “do the right thing”; and (iii) tighten surveillance and penalties to punish errant behavior. We discuss limitations, including funding, time period and the usage of technology concluding that a pilot test could be carried out to evaluate effectiveness, before scaling up further implementation in other waterways leading to Pasig River. 

We hope that our proposal can contribute in helping Manila finally achieve the sustainable development goal of ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. 

 

Session 3: Structure I : Markets

Venue: Lobby, OTH Building
Time: 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

PPP in Water Management

Group Members: Calista Lin Linya, Erns Saptenno, Nathan Edward Pringle, Nguyen Minh Tuan, Udaya Bhanu Prakash Vaddi

The sustainability of water supply and waste water removal and treatment is central to achievement of UN Sustainable Development Goal 6: to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.  This report focuses on the contribution of the PPP-operated sewerage system on Boracay island to this challenge. 

 The problem is clear: the supply of and connections to sewerage infrastructure and treatment facilities has not kept pace with increased demand. Rapid growth in tourist numbers over the past decade has seen the need for sewerage infrastructure outstrip its availability and use. This led to environmental damaged from the overburdened sewerage system.  

As the provider of the central waste water system, the public-private entity Boracay Island Water Company, Inc (BIWC) is central to efforts to place the island on a more sustainable footing. This report examines the challenges posed by BIWC’s operating environment, including governance structures on the island, the financial impact of accelerated infrastructure construction during Boracay’s shutdown and remediation, and the market structure for water and sewerage services on Boracay.  
Recommendations are made in each of these areas to enhance the sustainability of sewerage services and reduce the risk of returned environmental problems on Boracay. 

Cost Effective Solar Deployment in Philippines 

Group Members: Kyaw Zynn Latt James, Lhakpa Wangchuk, Pei Peng, Tng Mei Ling, Vinod Kumar Pandey

Boracay, as a tourist hotspot, has extremely high energy demands. It is estimated that an additional 5,000,000 kWh of energy, equivalent to 11,000 4-room flats energy consumption required to power the island during the peak travel season. This is costly to the Philippines – the total cost of extreme events from climate change is estimated to cost about 2 percent of its GDP.  

After reviewing the geography of Boracay, the team observed that it lies in the equatorial region, making it an attractive location for solar energy adoption. Given the high amount of solar irradiance received by the country, solar systems have the potential to produce  significant amounts of energy. The team hypothesizes the possibility of tapping on solar energy to meet the energy demands in Boracay and making it an affordable source of energy for everyone. 
There are 3 main policy concerns that the team seeks to address:
• The local government plan in Boracay lacks concrete strategy for usage of renewable energy adoption.
• There is little priority given for energy saving policies and measures. 
• There is limited public awareness and information available on solar energy adoption. 

To meet these needs, the team has developed the ‘Solar Share’ mobile application. This “one-stop” mobile application connects Philippines Government, businesses and the local communities together through a sharing platform where information regarding solar installation, solar awareness and solar funding can be found. Working on a public-private-partnership model, the revenue (through advertisement and commissions from sellers) collected via mobile application would sustain itself and lead to the full realization of solar adoption in Boracay.

Impact of Industry 4.0 on the Business Process Outsourcing Industry in the Philippines 

Group Members: Back Kyung Wha, Daniel Ching Sian Sim, Lim Wei Urn, Lu Yu, Tan Zhen Li

The 4th Industrial Revolution technologies will have significant economic and employment impacts on the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry in the Philippines. It is estimated that the overall market will mature and grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.2% from 2016 to 2022. 43,000 low-skilled jobs will become obsolete as a result of automation, and 654,000 new jobs at mid- and higher-skilled levels will be created by 2022 as the industry moves up the value chain. This transition to higher value-added and more skills- and knowledge-intensive activities is already taking place and will accelerate. 

Developing human capital is critical to provide a pipeline of skilled workers who can meet industry needs and foster sustainable economic growth. We propose that the Philippine government approve the concept of a Skills Upgrading Fund as the basis of a human capital development strategy for the BPO industry. Similar funds have been introduced in India and Singapore and offer insights for the Philippines. 

The Fund would provide resources for industry, training providers and workers to be skills-ready for the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) industry. The Fund would also address the labour market failure of insufficient skilled workers in the BPO/KPO industry. Information asymmetry faced by employers and employees would be reduced with clarity of the skills and training required for each occupation/job role. The adjustment cost for workers to reskill and upskill is cushioned by funding support. Employers and employees would face less uncertainty as the sustainability of the industry is assured and employment opportunities abound.

 

Session 4: Structure II: State

Venue: Lobby, OTH Building
Time: 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Sustainable Infrastructure

Group Members: Chaminda Rangalal Priyadarshana Walakuluge, Jainendra Singh Kandhari, Jean Paulo Castro E Silva, Lian Yingfei, Sayed Gheyasuddin Saadat

Rapid urbanization is escalating the Philippines’ demand for urban and transport infrastructure. Recognizing the importance of quality infrastructure in the development of the country, the Philippines government is planning to spend nearly USD 180 billion on infrastructure projects till the year 2022 under its ambitious ‘Build, Build, Build’ program.  
Ensuring effective maintenance of infrastructure is a constant challenge for governments due to the ever-increasing budgetary and other resource constraints. Therefore, exploring innovative and sustainable solutions for maintenance of public infrastructure have become a priority for the government.

Community engagement through the use of technology can supplement the efforts of the government in ensuring proper upkeep and maintenance of public infrastructure. Community engagement can act as a force multiplier in identification and resolution of defects in critical public infrastructure. Recent technological trends, like affordable mobile data connectivity, have made community engagement more efficient.

Taking an inspiration from international success stories, this report proposes the development of a mobile and web based application where users can upload information regarding existing and emerging defects like potholes, cracks, depressions, etc. in the national roads in Philippines. To implement the application, this report proposes partnering with a private mobile application service provider to roll out the application as an additional feature of their existing application, taking into account other alternatives and budget constraints.

Green Transportation through E-tricycles

Group Members: Joycelyn Seow Hui Lin, Lim Chan Kim Raymond, Mark Dominic Esparaz Lim, Munkhdul Badral, Zheng Xinhui 

E-tricycles (e-trikes) are not widely used in the Philippines because of its cost to own and operate, especially in Boracay. As such, our paper aims to determine how the government, specifically through the Department of Energy (DoE), can increase its sustainability, and encourage owners and drivers to transition from gasoline powered tricycle to e-trikes in Boracay and nationwide.
After seeing Manila City’s generally successful programme and Boracay’s current implementation, we have concluded that both government and market failures have led to the unsustainability of the e-trike programme for the owners and drivers in Boracay.
Through observation and research of the current implementation, feasibility, structure, and financing of the e-trike program, we have established an evaluation criteria and decision matrix to determine the feasibility of the policy in a given community, suggesting policy alternatives. These alternatives can be tailored, through the papers’ frameworks and models, for any given community.

Ultimately, we present two separate recommendations. First, a set of recommendations for Boracay, and how the current implementation may be improved through corporatisation of the e-trike industry. Secondly, a general recommendation for DoE to initiate a nationwide information campaign that will promote the e-trike programme to be less threatening to various stakeholders in the community. An information campaign is a cost-effective proposal that may be immediately implemented while evaluation and tailoring of other alternatives are being conducted.
With this, the paper hopes to have provided more tools, and elucidated on the present realities that can affect an e-trike implementation programme in the Philippines.