Seventh JVO Annual Memorial Lecture

Last November 11, 2008, Arsenio M. Balisacan, director of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) and professor of economics at the University of the Philippines, delivered the Seventh Jaime V. Ongpin Annual Memorial Lecture on Public Service in Business and Government.

BalisacanDuring the lecture, Balisacan cited slow productivity growth in agriculture (two of three persons who are poor live in rural areas) and rapid population growth as the two main reasons why poverty is prevalent in the country despite economic gains.
The panel of reactors, composed of Solita Collas Monsod, professor of Economics at the University of the Philippines; Alberto A. Lim, alumnus and executive director of the Makati Business Club; and Tony S. Lopez, founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of business and newsmagazine BizNewsAsia, gave insightful remarks and comments on the lecture.

According to her, keys to poverty reduction include education and health; family planning and agricultural growth. She said, agreeing with Balisacan, that land reform through the Comprehensive Agragrian Reform Program (CARP) is “ridiculous to stop now” because it will affect economic growth. She cited a survey where 82% of CARP beneficiaries said that are “better off.” Thus, she agreed with Balisacan’s assertion that there is indeed some economic growth in the country that remains unfelt by the poor. “There is no way we can say that the country has not grown,” she asserted.

Lim also suggested some ways to reduce poverty. For example, he suggested that the education of farmers’ children be subsidized as a way of improving their lives. He also went so far as to suggest the elimination of the Department of Agriculture (DAR) and to transfer funds used at DAR for the education and health of rural children. He also suggested a cash-for-work program, which as also recommended by Balisacan in his lecture, as a pathway out of poverty.

He said that well-off Filipinos are those that go abroad and those who have been born rich—a handful of families that own the largest corporations in the Philippines. Thus, his solution of out poverty was either to “go abroad or join a family.”