This paper reviews the current state of and challenges facing social protection in the Philippines. It describes the social protection institutions and the schemes that have been developed throughout the years. It also provides an assessment focusing on coverage, administration, and management....

This study reviews and evaluates the major contributory and non-contributory social protection programs that are currently in place as part of the government's portfolio of social protection interventions, including social insurance (SSS, GSIS, PhilHealth), social welfare programs (e.g.,...

The Philippines aspires to be an upper middle-income country by 2022 as stated in the 2017–2022 Philippine Development Plan. It has also committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), where the first goal is to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. This paper examines the performance of...

The paper seeks to take stock of some of the key APEC documents/reports relevant to social protection and safety net programs, and also of the experience of APEC member-economies, with special focus on the Philippines, in implementing social protection measures. In particular, it attempts to...

This study assesses the state of microinsurance in the country, identifies the players and their performance, and the challenges facing microinsurance development. The term micro pertains to the capacity of a program to handle the small, sometime irregular cash flows of poor households, who have...

Platform work has the potential to help women reconcile the age-old conflict between unpaid work and market work. However, there is a degree of precariousness in platform work, one that is reminiscent of informal work. Concerns on whether platforms are new vehicles of delivering old inequalities...

Since 2011, the government, through the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), has implemented the Social Pension (SocPen) Program which gives a noncontributory monthly pension of PHP 500 to qualified seniors, i.e., indigent Filipinos aged 60 and above. Initially, the DSWD had...

The COVID-19 pandemic has such a wide-reaching and sudden adverse impact on people's livelihoods. For a country like the Philippines which significantly relies on overseas remittances to boost household consumption, the return of hundreds of thousands of OFWs is a great reminder of the need for...

Indigent membership in PhilHealth has surged in recent years, driven by the nation-wide identification of the poor. However, the massive identification has led to the enrollment of more members than official poverty estimates, resulting in leakages in the government's social health insurance...

The Philippines is identified as one of the countries with an ageing population, as the proportion of persons aged 60 and above is at 7.4 percent in 2015 and is projected to increase to 15.9 percent by 2045. Senior citizens tend to have higher prevalence of various medical diseases and...