ABSTRACT The Philippines fully implemented in school year 2016-2017 the K to 12 program, a reform initiative that lengthens the total number of basic education years from ten to 12. It was a reform that was met with some opposition by parents and teachers alike but was carried out smoothly and according to schedule, despite…
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. His entry into politics was messianic. His predecessor an heir to his parents’ legacy, a beneficiary of continuing public regard for a family name attached to a collective victory over a vicious dictatorship. He came at a time when government was colored “yellow” — and its shade fading from good governance…
In January 2017, the Oxfam reported that eight men have an aggregate wealth equivalent to the assets of 3.6 billion people who constitute the poorest half of the world. Out of 10, one survives on less than US $2 a day. These figures from Oxfam prove the deepening problem of inequality across the globe. The…
Social protection in modern society varies from one country to another. While the ultimate goal of protecting the poor from vulnerabilities, shocks and risks is shared, the approaches to implementing social protection are not exactly standard. As the World Bank argues, implementing social protection instruments — from social insurance, social assistance to labor market interventions…
Non-profit organizations have played a key role in social development. They hold great influence in mobilizing people, facilitating and initiating policy reforms, and effecting change on both levels of community and government. For countries such as the United States, non-profit organizations can even have a bearing on foreign policy behaviors (Kim, 2011). If media is…
Hong Kong is one Four Asian Tigers. Its economy is among the world’s strongest and its market, ranked the world’s freest. With no debt, its foreign reserves run around US$370 billion, making it undeniably one of the region’s most robust. But this rosy picture of economic growth does not provide a fuller perspective of Hong…
Aging in Perspective Issues on aging revolve around the concepts of family, financial security, and institutional support. They stare us in the face from the inability to increase and sustain public transfer of resources from what the Asian Development Bank (ADB) terms as “surplus working ages” to the “age deficits”, which include the elderly (Park…
A major education reform in Hong Kong finally saw its implementation in September 2000, after a series of deliberations and public consultations between and among key stakeholders spanning 10 years. The reform overhauls the system from pre-primary education to university. It is officially known as the New Senior Secondary Curriculum (NSSC), but it is popularly…
(Blog contribution to the World Bank. Click to access original site: World Bank EAP Blogs) Scroll through social media in the Philippines, and you’ll get the feel of how young people have transformed digital spaces into a microcosm of what the Philippines should or should not be. If only their ideas and fervor in cyberspace could…
Eugenia Sephera in the book Understanding New Media discusses how Web 2.0, which includes social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, democratizes politics and has become an alternative to mainstream media. Journalism holds a political function which is to help shape public opinion and make governments accountable for their actions (Habermas, 1996, cited in Sephera,…
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