{"id":111259,"date":"2017-08-10T21:33:43","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T01:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=111259"},"modified":"2017-08-10T21:33:43","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T01:33:43","slug":"neda-ph-should-invest-more-in-education-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/08\/10\/neda-ph-should-invest-more-in-education-health\/","title":{"rendered":"NEDA: PH should invest more in education, health"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_111262\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-111262\" style=\"width: 415px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Ernesto-Pernia.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-111262\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Ernesto-Pernia.jpg\" alt=\"National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director-General Ernesto Pernia (PNA Photo)\" width=\"415\" height=\"260\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Ernesto-Pernia.jpg 415w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Ernesto-Pernia-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 415px) 100vw, 415px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-111262\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director-General Ernesto Pernia (PNA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>MANILA, Aug. 10 \u2014 The Philippines needs to invest more in quality education and health services in order to benefit from its demographics deemed an important factor driving the economy.<\/p>\n<p>National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director-General Ernesto Pernia said human capital investments should reach three percent of the country\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is the norm in other countries, three percent. But I think we are spending less. We can gradually (increase) to that,\u201d he said in an interview on the sidelines of Dutertenomics forum in Makati City.<\/p>\n<p>Pernia noted education and health are \u201csoft infrastructure\u201d imperative for economic development.<\/p>\n<p>He said investments also include improving hospitals or building new ones in the regions, and plans on improving the quality of health services and nutrition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(The government\u2019s) \u201cbuild, build, build\u201d (program) has to do not only with physical infrastructure but also \u201cbuild, build, build\u201d of human infrastructure especially because we have a young population,\u201d Pernia said during the forum.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cannot really maximize what we call the demographic dividend unless we invest adequately in quality health and education services,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the NEDA chief said there are 75 high-impact infrastructure flagship projects the NEDA Board approved for adoption, which he considered as \u201cgame changing projects\u201d all over the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost of these (projects), we\u2019ll try to process and complete within the term of the President (Rodrigo Duterte) especially those that would have been started this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Pernia further said that apart from the 75 flagship projects, the government has 5,000 minor projects like irrigation and road widening all over the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe thrust of the development strategy is really rural and regional development and this can be facilitated by investing or building infrastructure in areas outside Metro Manila, especially the lagging regions so that they can join the mainstream economy,\u201d he added. (PNA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MANILA, Aug. 10 \u2014 The Philippines needs to invest more in quality education and health services in order to benefit &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":111262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[9402,12460,2870,3450],"class_list":["post-111259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-education","tag-ernesto-pernia","tag-health-2","tag-neda","mauthors-leslie-gatpolintan","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}