By IBARRA C. MATEO
THE five provinces of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) have performed the poorest in terms of life expectancy, school enrollment, literacy and incomes among all 77 provinces in the country, according to the 2008/2009 Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR) which was released Wednesday.
The PHDR surveyed Metro Manila and the provinces, and ranked their human development index (HDI). The HDI assesses how a particular area performs in terms of people’s per capita incomes and access to basic services.
Sulu posted the lowest HDI, followed by Tawi-tawi, Maguindanao, Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Masbate, Sarangani, Eastern Samar, Zamboanga del Norte and Romblon.
Dr. Arsenio Balisacan, president of the nonstock, nonprofit Human Development Network (HDN) Foundation which published the PHDR, told reporters most of the 10 lowest-ranked provinces were conflict-ridden.
“Long-running conflict in these areas suspended the delivery of and access to services,” Balicasan said.
On the other hand, the province with the highest HDI was Benguet, followed by Rizal, Cavite, Bataan, Laguna, Pampanga, Ilocos Norte, Batanes, Nueva Vizcaya, and La Union.
Balisacan said most of the residents of the 10 lowest-ranked provinces who had the means to leave, such as the educated segment of the population, had already left and only the very poor remain.
In a news conference after the launching of the PHDR, Dr. Toby Melissa Monsod, one of the authors of the report, said the political and military conflicts in the areas must be resolved.
“It boils down to inequity. The policy challenge is to stop the war. We have to deal with the peace issues. The use of the whole military apparatus is not the correct approach to resolve the conflict,” Monsod said. “Poverty is only a symptom of what is going on there. It is only an effect of the conflict.”
Monsod also urged international donor agencies to the conflict-ridden provinces to review their “strategic interventions” in order not to waste resources.
In the 2005 PHDR, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had already said that “deprivation and injustice, rather than hardship alone, lie at the heart of the armed conflict.”
“As human insecurity increases from armed conflict, people turn away from those social and productive activities that could have facilitated the development of their human potential. Lives are destroyed, families and communities torn apart, cultures decline, and investment is foregone or deflected. Development in the immediate area stagnates and, through spillovers, the entire region and perhaps the entire country are affected,” the UNDP said in a statement issued Wednesday.
Dr. Allan Bernardo, another author of the 2008/2009 report, said those born in Tawi-tawi in 2006 are expected to live 21 years less than those in La Union province, where life expectancy is 74.6 years, the longest in the Philippines.
Bernardo said that on the national level, Filipinos born in 2006 live about eight years longer compared to those born in 1980, an improvement of roughly three years every decade.
On the ranking according to basic enrollment rates, the province of Batanes topped the list with 100 percent of primary school-age children enrolled. Mountain Province, Camiguin, Benguet and Misamis Occidental complete the top five slots.
The lowest five are Maguindanao, Sarangani, Zamboanga del Sur, North Cotabato, and Negros Oriental.
Bernardo said the top five provinces with the highest per capita incomes are Benguet, Nueva Vizcaya, Batanes, Bataan, and Laguna while those with the lowest are Tawi-tawi, Sulu, Basilan, Masbate, and Lanao del Sur.
The 10 “most improved provinces” are Benguet, Biliran, Siguijor, Bataan, Iloilo, Guimaras, Lanao del Norte, Cagayan Province, Ilocos Norte, and Ilocos Sur.
Bernardo said the 2008/2009 compared provinces to countries “to provide a wider perspective on our progress as a nation.”
Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-tawi, the provinces with the lowest HDIs, were likened to Myanmar and the poorest African countries such as Nigeria, Senegal, Pakistan.
Benguet and Rizal, the two provinces with the highest provincial HDIs, compare with Ukraine and Metro Manila to Turkey and Thailand.
Explaning why the 2008/2009 PHDR adopted the theme “Institutions, Politics, and Human Development in the Philippines,” UNDP resident representative to the Philippines Renaud Meyer said, “Politics or political authority shapes the character of institutions and in turn shape or influence the behavior of people. This interrelation will always dictate the way things are done.”
“Institutions are the machinery that fosters or hinders good governance, and thereby positively or negatively affect the achievement of human development,” Meyer added.
Other key findings of the report are:
* Existing incentives, both monetary and non-monetary are “perverse” and undermine the government’s ability to recruit, motivate, and retain quality people key level of the civil service
* The budget process constrains performance because of inflexibility and weak accountability. Dependence of official development aid backfires on reforms and creates further room for leakages
* Weak congressional oversights in practice and in law contribute to weak accountability. The “power of the purse” is with the executive, not the legislature
* The performance of enforcement bodies such as the Civil Service Commission, Office of Management and Budget, and the judiciary is weakened by the direct and indirect interference from, or circumvention or rules by the appointing authority.