DUTERTE ORDERS IMPLEMENTATION OF MEDIUM-TERM DEV’T PLAN

President Duterte has ordered all government agencies to implement the administration’s medium-term development plan and take it into utmost consideration when pitching their annual budgets.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia, who is also director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda), told reporters yesterday that the President last Thursday signed Executive Order (EO) No. 27 mandating the implementation of the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) as well as the Public Investment Program (PIP) for 2017-2022.

EO 27 directed all government agencies, state-run firms and local government units to “adopt and disseminate the PDP 2017-2022 and undertake efforts leading to its full implementation” as well as “align their budgetary and departmental/corporate programs with the strategies and activities identified” in the plan.

The PDP 2017-2022 targets 7 to 8 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the medium term by pursuing the Duterte administration’s 10-point socioeconomic agenda ultimately aimed at reducing the poverty incidence to 14 percent by 2022 from 21.6 percent in 2015.

As for job creation, the PDP 2017-2022 wanted to reduce unemployment to as low as 3-5 percent by 2022 from 5.5 percent last year.

PDP 2017-2022 is the first medium-term development plan anchored on the longterm vision dubbed “AmBisyon Natin 2040.”

Launched last year, AmBisyon Natin 2040 is aimed at tripling Filipinos’ per capita income to $11,000 in 24 years’ time by sustaining at least 6.5-percent annual GDP growth alongside the implementation of policies that would make the Philippines a high-income country by 2040.

A survey conducted early last year showed that the majority of Filipinos aspired for a “simple and comfortable life,” which Neda had said reflected middle-class lifestyle—earning enough, educating all children until college, owning a car, owning a medium-sized house, finding time to relax with family and friends, owning a business and being able to travel around the country.