THE newly sworn-in Commission on Population and Development (Popcom) Executive Director intends to focus on the commission’s development aims.
National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan has recently sworn into office former National Statistician Lisa Grace S. Bersales as undersecretary for population and development (Popdev).
“The three key strategies of Popcom under the Philippine Population and Devt Program to attain the goal and anchored on the new PDP are: responsible parenthood and family planning; adolescent health and development; and, population and development integration. The latter is what [the Neda] Secretary wants Popcom to work on,” Bersales told the BusinessMirror.
Bersales said that while Balisacan has yet to detail his marching orders, her task of leading Popcom will focus on the goal of the commission, which is to improve the quality of human life.
“Recognizing that achievement of this goal requires recognition of close interrelationships among population, resources, (and) environmental factors. Development includes attaining the demographic dividend,” she added.
Reaping the demographic dividend has three known conditions. The first is bringing down the country’s fertility rate to replacement rate.
Based on the Philippine Statistics Authority’s (PSA) National Health Demographic Survey (NDHS) 2022, the total fertility rate (TFR) of Filipino women 15- to 49-years old now stands at 1.9 children, below the 2.1 percent replacement rate needed to sustain population growth.
The second condition is to have a large working age population. As of November 2022, PSA data showed Filipinos aged 15 to 64 years old reached 76.914 million.
The last condition is for the working age population to be gainfully employed. The PSA data, however, showed 7.161 million underemployed and 2.177 million unemployed Filipinos.
Opportunities
EARLIER, Balisacan said the slower fertility rate presents opportunities to grow the economy and reduce the number of poor Filipinos whereas a population boom would complicate poverty reduction efforts.
He explained that with lower fertility rates, Filipino families will have more opportunity to move up the income ladder with less family members to support. The Neda Chief said if there are more younger members of households, there are less adults to support children.
If there are more adults compared to children in households, Balisacan said, families can focus on the quality of the care and attention they can provide to young members. This includes investments in health and education.
Neda said Bersales brings into Popcom her deep expertise from almost four decades of academic practice as a researcher and professor at the University of the Philippines, where she was dean and director of its Graduate Studies for the School of Statistics.
As the first national statistician, Neda said Bersales led the implementation of the Philippine Statistics Act of 2013 by setting up the Philippine Statistics Authority in 2014.
Bersales worked on the Public-Private Partnership for the Civil Registration System Information Technology Project-Phase 2 of the Philippines in 2016, and chaired Philippine Identification System working group that provided inputs to the Philippine Identification System Act enacted in 2018, where she formalized its Implementing Rules and Regulation in the same year.
Neda said her most recent significant engagement in the international arena includes being co-chair of the United Nations-Statistical Commission’s Inter-Agency and Expert Group on the Sustainable Development Goals’ indicators from 2015 to 2017, which developed its global framework.
Image credits: popcom.gov.ph