The Role of PIDS and Its Contribution to Research and Policymaking in the Philippines

Established in 1977, the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) has been an important research resource in the country. It has served to bring together an unprecedented concentration of intellectual minds from institutions and organizations all over the country and abroad--to engage in an independent agenda that has generated a prolific body of work with a strong orientation and focus on policy. But how effective has this been? The author gives a brisk overview of why the wealth of insights and recommendations have not translated into enhanced developmental outcomes and laments that Philippine governments since at least Macapagal and Marcos have never built on each other--they "just selectively chose what they liked, not what the country needed."