Ronald G. Sison*

This document is part of the

Recent years have seen an increasing concern of the national policy-makers for an objective assessment of the country's development policies as well as the policy-making process itself. To a great extent, this has been triggered by the growing disparity in the present level of Philippine economic growth and development vis-a-vis those of other developing Asian countries such as Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. The Philippines has lagged behind in economic growth although it has been tagged as one of the more promising developing nations in Asia in the post-war years because of its relative advantage in resources.

Many attribute this lackluster performance to ineffective development planning. The slow growth of the nation's economy has been traced to the adoption of an ineffective mix of macroeconomic and social development policies that apparently failed to fully utilize the country's resources, including manpower. National development plans have been found to carry over-ambitious objectives; internally inconsistent targets and policy translation tools; and a selective approach to development (Tan and Alonzo 1986).

Development planners have also given increasing attention to the development of human resources as they recognized that economic growth depends not only on how well capital resources are harnessed for national production but on the quality of manpower as well. Since then, manpower planning has gained an important place in the country's development thrust. This process includes the matching of manpower demand with supply to attain national production targets. It, therefore, needs a thorough understanding and analysis of

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*Ronald Sison is Chief of the Labor Policy Development and Evaluation Division Institute for Labor Studies, Department of Labor and Employment.