EDITORIAL - Development laggard

The country’s ranking is down in yet another international study. In the 2009 Human Development Report, the Philippines ranked 105th out of 182 countries. The ranking in the Human Development Index, prepared by the United Nations Development Program, puts the Philippines in the same medium development category as Algeria, China, El Salvador, Gabon, Jamaica, Paraguay, Sri Lanka, Syria, Thailand and Tonga.

The index measures human development in terms of three dimensions: life expectancy, education and standard of living, which includes purchasing power parity. In the past 10 years, according to the UNDP report, the Philippines’ ranking has dropped steadily among over 170 countries and territories, plunging from 77th place in 1997 and 1998 to 83rd to 85th from 2000 to 2004, and down to 102nd place in 2006. The Philippines’ ranking has gone down as other countries such as China have done better in terms of human development.

The top three countries in the Human Development Index are Norway, Australia and Iceland. They belong to the new top country category created by the UNDP: Very High Human Development. People in such countries, according to the UNDP, can expect to be better educated, live longer and earn more.

What does this mean for Filipinos? People in the top tiers of human development can expect to live an average of 80 years, enjoy per capita income of up to $37,000 and have few illiterates in their midst or none at all. In medium development countries such as the Philippines, people have a life expectancy of only 67 years, illiteracy is still prevalent and per capita income can range from only $3,000 to over $4,000.

Each time these studies come out, the government says it considers the results as a challenge to do better. The same attitude is taken by other countries, but several of them have gone beyond rhetoric and done better than the Philippines in the past years, as shown in the steady improvement in their rankings in terms of national competitiveness, transparency and human development. The Philippine government must go beyond best-efforts pledges and stop the country’s slide.