The Annual Public Policy Conference (APPC) is the main and culminating activity of the Development Policy Research Month (DPRM) celebration held every September. The 8th APPC will feature the theme “#CloseTheGap: Accelerate Post-pandemic Recovery through Social Justice” in a four-part webinar series.

This first webinar in the series will be on September 13, from 9:00 to 11:30 am, via Zoom. It will begin with the APPC Opening Program.

It will be followed by the session on “The Concept of Social Justice in the 21st Century”.  Through esteemed local and international speakers, this session will answer the following questions:

• How can social justice be strengthened and applied in a post-pandemic era?
• What policy measures have worked in addressing social, economic, and environmental inequities?

This event will be streamed live on the PIDS Facebook page (facebook.com/PIDS.PH) and the SERP-P Community page (facebook.com/SERPPH/).

#APPC2022CloseTheGap
#APPC2022AcceleratePostPandemicRecoveryThroughSocialJustice

PROGRAM

Opening Program (9:00 am to 9:20 am)

Opening Speaker
Dr. Aniceto Orbeta Jr.
President
Philippine Institute for Development Studies

Keynote Speaker
Dr. Arsenio Balisacan
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary
National Economic and Development Authority

Host
Dr. Sheila Siar
Manager, Research Information Department
Philippine Institute for Development Studies

APPC Webinar 1: The Concept of Social Justice in the 21st Century (9:25 am to 11:30 am)

Presentation of the Speaker (9:30 am to 10:10 am)

Promoting Skills to Promote Successful Lives

• Prof. James Heckman
  2000 Nobel Laureate in Economics
  Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics
  Director, Center for the Economics of Human Development
  The University of Chicago

Panel Discussion (10:10 am to 11:00 am)
Dr. Raul Fabella
Professor Emeritus, School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman
Honorary Professor, Asian Institute of Management
National Scientist, National Academy of Science and Technology

Dr. Mahar Mangahas
Chair Emeritus, Social Weather Stations
Academician, National Academy of Science and Technology

Dr. Beverly Lorraine Ho
OIC-Undersecretary, Public Health Services Team
Concurrent Assistant Secretary
Director, Health Promotion Bureau
Department of Health

Atty. Sophia Monica San Luis
Executive Director and Co-founder
ImagineLaw, Inc.

Open Forum (11:00 am to 11:30 am)

Moderator
Dr. Agustin Arcenas
Associate Professor, Economics and Development Studies
University of the Philippines Diliman and Los Baños

PROFILES

Dr. Aniceto Orbeta Jr.
President
Philippine Institute for Development Studies

Aniceto C. Orbeta, Jr. is the current President of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, where he has served as a Senior Research Fellow since 1992.

He is an economist interested in applied economic modeling, impact evaluation, education and labor market, social protection, demographic economics, and information and communication technologies. In addition, he has extensive experience in designing, conducting, and teaching impact evaluation of programs and policies in education, social protection, judicial reforms, community-driven development, water services, agriculture, and agriculture finance. He has written papers and served as a consultant to multilateral and bilateral institution in these areas.

He has served as Deputy Executive Director of the Policy Development Foundation, Inc. He has also served as the Officer-in-Charge and Deputy Executive Director for Policy Development and Planning for the Agricultural Credit Policy Council.  He was a Professorial Lecturer at the University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE) and a Visiting Researcher at the Asian Development Bank Institute.

He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the UPSE and did post-doctoral studies at Harvard University.

Dr. Arsenio Balisacan
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary
National Economic and Development Authority

Dr. Arsenio Balisacan is an economist with extensive development policy, governance, and administration expertise acquired from over 35 years of professional work as a government official, non-governmental organization executive, economic adviser, researcher, and professor.

A former professor of the University of the Philippines (UP) School of Economics for three decades, Dr. Balisacan is presently a Cabinet member of the Philippine Government, serving as Secretary of the National Economic and Development Authority, a post he had previously held from 2012 to 2016. He also served as the inaugural Chairperson of the Philippine Competition Commission from 2016 to 2022.

Previous to his Cabinet appointment in 2012, he was Dean of the UP School of Economics, Director-Chief Executive of the Southeast Asian Regional Centre for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), and Undersecretary for Policy and Planning of the Department of Agriculture. Before joining the UP faculty in 1987, he was Research Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu and Economist at the World Bank in Washington, DC.

He has authored and co-edited seven books and published, both locally and internationally, close to 100 academic papers and book chapters on various development issues, particularly in the Philippines and East Asia. His papers have appeared in, among others, Economics Letters (Elsevier), World Development (Elsevier), Review of World Economics (Springer), and Economic Development and Cultural Change (University of Chicago).

A member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST Philippines) since 2008, Academician Balisacan holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Hawaii, MS in Agricultural Economics from the University of the Philippines Los Baños, and BS in Agriculture from the Mariano Marcos State University.

Prof. James Heckman
2000 Nobel Laureate in Economics
Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics
Director, Center for the Economics of Human Development
The University of Chicago

James J. Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he directs the Center for the Economics of Human Development, a research center dedicated to rigorous empirical research on the economic foundations of lifecycle inequality.

He has devoted his professional life to understanding important social and economic issues, including how best to reduce inequality and promote opportunity for all. Current research at CEHD includes analyzing the impact of early childhood programs around the world by studying the immediate and long-term impacts of interventions (including the impacts in midlife on health and on other family members). His research also uses original data gathered in the U.S., China, and Germany to measure preferences and traits to help inform governments, schools, and teachers about how socioemotional skills can help students achieve their full potential. A new research project studies the determinants intergenerational mobility in the U.S. and Denmark to determine in what ways the “Scandinavian Fantasy” of social welfare may be a myth.

In 2000, Heckman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on the microeconometrics of diversity and heterogeneity and for establishing a causal basis for public policy evaluation. He has received numerous other awards for his work, including the John Bates Clark Medal in 1983, the Gold Medal of the President of the Italian Republic in 2008, the Frisch Medal from the Econometric Society in 2014 for the most outstanding paper in applied economics published in Econometrica in the previous five years, and the Dan David Prize in 2016. He consistently ranks as one of the most-cited economists in the world, as reported by RePEc.

Heckman has a B.A. in Mathematics from Colorado College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University. He has been at the University of Chicago since 1973.

Dr. Raul Fabella
Professor Emeritus, School of Economics, University of the Philippines Diliman
Honorary Professor, Asian Institute of Management
National Scientist, National Academy of Science and Technology

Dr. Raul V. Fabella is a social scientist (economics), an emeritus professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics and holds the position of Honorary Professor at the Asian Institute of Management.  He got his MA Economics from the University of the Philippines School of Economics and his PhD Economics from Yale University. He is a member of the National Academy of Science and Technology. He was elevated to the rank of National Scientist by President Benigno Aquino in 2011. He was for a long time a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and still is of Philippine Review of Economics. He is a regular contributor to BusinessWorld. He initiated concepts like development progeria, conglopolistic competition, landed poor, the debt-adjusted real exchange rate, divide-by-N and others. His current research interests are Regulation, Competition Policy, Inclusion and Industry Structure and the Electricity Industry. His favorite local tune is Cinderella’s Bato sa Buhangin; he is partial to Michel Legrand (e.g., Hands of Time), Rachmaninov (e.g., Second Piano Concerto) and Debussy (e.g., Reverie, Claire de Lune). His favorite fairy tale is The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen; Ishiguro Kazu’s Remains of the Day is his favorite book and film; Boublil and Schonberg’s Miss Saigon and Bernstein and Sondheim’s West Side Story are tie for his favorite musical. He pedals a bicycle around the subdivision 24/7 and tends to flowers with wife Teena for his endorphin fix. He adores the guitar and though this love is terribly unrequited, he persists. His recent works are among others:

“Is Federalization a Corruption-Abatement Strategy in Developing Countries?” 2022, to appear in Asian Journal of Law and Economics (with Daway-Ducanes, Jandoc, Karl and Arzadon, Irene).

“Gauging the Market Potential for Natural Gas Among Philippine Manufacturing Firms”, 2021, Energy (with Ravago M, K Jandoc, R Frias and J Magadia) Energy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2021.121563

 “Survey data on energy and fuel use of firms in economic zones in the Philippines”, December 2021, Data in Brief, 39) (with M Ravago, K Jandoc, R Frias and J Magadia). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2021.107637

“Low Income Traps and Philippine Poverty Incidence” 2022, (with Geoffrey Ducanes) in Hill H, M Ravago and J Roumasset, Pro-poor Development Policies: Lessons from the Philippines and East Asia (Singapore: Institutue of Southeast Asian Studies)

Moment2m: More Reform for Economic Growth (co-editor with Christine Alcantara, Romeo Bernardo, Calixto Chikiamco, Ramon Clarete, Emmanuel de Dios) Foundation for Economic Freedom, December 2021.

Momentum: Economic Reforms for Sustaining Growth (co-editor with Emmanuel de Dios, Calixto Chikiamko, Cayetano Paderanga and Romeo Bernardo) Foundation for Economic Freedom, November 2019.

Capitalism and Inclusion under Weak Institutions (Diliman, QC: UP CIDS, 2018).

“Competition Policy and Inclusion in the Philippines” (with Senen Bacani and Andre Palacios) 2020. CIDS

Room for Maneuver (co-editor with Jaime Faustino, Adrian Leftwich and Andrew Parker) The Asia Foundation, 2014.

Built on Dreams, Rooted in Reality (with Jaime Faustino et al.) The Asia Foundation, 2011.

Competitive Advantage and Competition Policy in Developing Countries, co-editor (with Paul Cook and Cassey Lee) Edward Elgar: UK, 2007.

Dr. Mahar Mangahas
Chair Emeritus, Social Weather Stations
Academician, National Academy of Science and Technology

Mahar K. Mangahas <mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph>, born 1944 in Manila, Philippines, is a Filipino economist who has done research on rice economics, land reform, poverty, hunger, income inequality, quality-of-life, governance, and public opinion. 

After basic schooling at the Ateneo de Manila, he went to the University of the Philippines (AB 1962, MA 1965) and the University of Chicago (PhD 1970).

Mangahas taught at the University of the Philippines (1962-81), becoming Professor of Economics.  He was UNICEF Social Indicators Consultant in Malaysia (1977/78) and Indonesia (1981), Vice-President for Research of the Development Academy of the Philippines (1981-84), Editor of the Philippine Economic Journal (1975-85), President of the Philippine Economic Society (1980), President of the Marketing and Opinion Research Society of the Philippines (1992), co-founder of the Philippine Agrarian Reform Foundation, and co-founder of the Foundation for Economic Freedom.

In 1985, he co-founded Social Weather Stations (www.sws.org.ph), the Philippines’ leading institute in quality-of-life monitoring, opinion polling, and survey archiving; he was President up to September 2021, and then became Chair Emeritus.  SWS received the 2019 Award for the Betterment of the Human Condition from the International Society for Quality of Life Studies (ISQOLS).  

Awards: (a) 2001 Helen Dinerman Award of the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR), for “championing the rights and freedoms of survey researchers in the Philippines,” after SWS successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to nullify legislation banning publication of pre-election surveys.  (b) 2011 University of Chicago Alumni Award for Public Service, for being “a powerful influence in helping to define a nation’s identity and to restore democracy by demonstrating the public will through numbers.” (c) 2014 ISQOLS Distinguished Research Fellow Award, for career contributions to quality of life research.  (d) 2015 Distinguished Alumnus Award of the University of the Philippines School of Economics. (e) 2018: elected Academician, National Academy of Science and Technology.  (f) 2020: WAPOR-Asia’s first Lifetime Achievement Awardee.

Mangahas’ column “Social Climate” appears weekly in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (inquirer.net).

Dr. Beverly Lorraine C. Ho
OIC-Undersecretary, Public Health Services Team
Concurrent Assistant Secretary
Director, Health Promotion Bureau
Department of Health

Beverly Lorraine Ho is the OIC-Undersecretary of the Public Health Services Team and the concurrent Director of the Health Promotion Bureau of the Department of Health. As OIC-Undersecretary of PHST, she leads the development of standards, policies, and programs on population and individual-based health services. As HPB Director, she leads the implementation of policies and programs that promote healthy behaviors and support conducive environments for health.

Prior to this, she was the Disease Prevention and Control Bureau Director that leads primary care integration of various health programs and Chief of Research Division of the Health Policy Development and Planning Bureau where her efforts significantly contributed to the passage of key legislation on sugar-sweetened beverage tax, tobacco tax and universal health care.  She has also worked in the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation and the Asian Development Bank.

Bev is a fellow of the Maurice Greenberg World Fellows Program at Yale University, the Equity Initiative and the Atlantic Institute. She holds an MD from the University of the Philippines and an MPH in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as a Fulbright Scholar.

Atty. Sophia Monica San Luis
Executive Director and Co-founder
ImagineLaw, Inc.

Sophia is a public interest lawyer, specializing in public health policy development and advocacy. She is the executive director and a co-founder of ImagineLaw, Inc., a public interest law organization that designs and advocates for policies to help Filipinos live healthy and meaningful lives.

Sophia also manages ImagineLaw’s ImagineLaw’s Data for Health program, working with low- and middle-income countries to strengthen their Civil Registration, Vital Statistics and National ID Systems. She previously led ImagineLaw’s road safety program and successfully advocated for the enactment of a national law on the use of child restraints and 40 local speed limit ordinances.  

As consultant for Quezon City, Sophia helped develop landmark legislation on affordable housing and HIV/AIDS prevention and control.

Dr. Agustin Arcenas
Associate Professor, Economics and Development Studies
University of the Philippines Diliman and Los Baños

Dr. Agustin L. Arcenas is an Associate Professor, teaching economics and development studies at UP-Diliman and UP-Los Baños. Dr. Arcenas has a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics specializing in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. Before joining the University of the Philippines 17 years ago, he was a member of the Policy and Economics Team (PET) as an environmental economist in the (then) Environment Department of the World Bank in Washington, D.C.  Prior to working at the World Bank, he was a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University.

Since moving back to the Philippines in 2005, Dr. Arcenas has been working on and written about various environmental and natural resource issues including economic valuation of ecosystem services, water and air pollution management, climate change impacts, environmental health, mining, and waste and sanitation. He has served as a consultant for the government and several international development agencies.

This webinar is organized by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, with support from the BSP Research Academy.