Having served nine years as President of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, Ramon Guico was able to visit various localities in the country that allowed him to identify major concerns that truly touch the lives of ordinary Filipinos.  Thus, he develops policy advocacies focusing on four pertinent issues:  Gamot, Edukasyon, Trabaho, Serbisyo.

GAMOT

• All Filipinos, rich or poor, need medicine to stay healthy or get well.
• Yet, only 30% of Filipinos have regular access to essential medicines.
• Only six out of ten sick Filipinos are able to see a doctor.
• Five out of ten sick Filipinos die without medical attention.
• Prices of medicines in the Philippines are among the highest in Asia.
• Medicines in the Philippines are far more expensive than in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
• Around 60% of healthcare expenditures and provisions are in the private sector.
• The 1991 Local Government Code has devolved healthcare functions to the Local Government Units (LGUs). Yet, budget for health is still with the national government.
• Government financing of medicines in the Philippines remains very low.
• Because of expensive cost of medicines and healthcare in the Philippines, the country is highly vulnerable to the proliferation of counterfeit medicines.
• In June 2008, PGMA signed Republic Act 9502, otherwise known Cheaper Medicine Law or “Universally Accessible Cheaper and Quality Medicines Act of 2008”. This law aims to ensure that poor Filipinos have improved access to essential medicines that are affordable and in excellent quality.
• There is a need to promote a legislative agenda that urges for the legislation of health-related laws at the local level.  There is also a need to pursue legislation that devolves health budget to the local government.

EDUKASYON

• According to the  Department of Education, 8 out of 10 Filipinos are considered functionally literate.   
• Compared to currency value of education in Japan, Singapore and Thailand, the cost of education in the Philippines is cheaper.  But the cost of education is expensive to Filipinos who earn lesser that their Asian neighbors. 
• Public primary and secondary education in the Philippines are subsidized by the government for free.  But private primary and secondary education are truly expensive, particularly in international schools.
• Tuition fees in public college education is much cheaper than private college education.
•  Yet, only 66 out of 100 Grade One pupils can finish Grade Six.  Only 58 of the 66  go on to enroll in first-year high school and only 43 can finish high school. Of the 43 who finished high school, only 23 can enroll in college and only 14 of the 23 graduate from college. This means that only 14 out of 100 Grade One pupils can actually earn a college degree.
• Most of those who graduate from college prefer to work abroad.
• There is a need to pass a law encouraging the strengthening of local college education to make college education more accessible to the people.

TRABAHO

• Based on the preliminary results of the July 2009 Labor Force Survey (LFS) of the National Statistics Office (NSO), the country’s labor force increased by 2.9 percent (+1.089 million) from 37.343 million in July 2008 to 38.432 million in 2009.  
• Yet, national unemployment rate went up by 0.2 percentage point from 7.4 in 2008  to 7.6 percent in July 2009.  By region, NCR recorded the highest unemployment rate of 12.1 percent, followed by Region IV-A at 11.1 percent.  The rest of the regions posted single digit unemployment rates ranging from 9.9 percent in Region III to as low as 2.8 percent in Region II.
• According to the January 2009 data from the Labor Force Survey of the NSO, there were 1.9 million Filipinos aged 5 to 17 years who are economically active, bulk of whom are males representing 1.2 M.
• Based on results of the Labor Force Survey, the average daily basic pay of wage and salary workers in January 2009 stood at P 285.62.  A year ago, it was estimated at P 270.55, translating to a P 15.07 increase over the period.
• For the first quarter of 2009, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) reported the deployment of 397,626 Filipinos, mostly land based, in about 200 countries around the world.
• On the other hand, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) estimated that total remittances from Overseas Filipinos through the banking system from January to June 2009 reached an aggregate of US$ 8.480 billion.  Of this amount, 80.6 percent or US$ 6.832 billion came from land-based workers, while the remaining 19.4 percent or US$ 1.648 billion were sent by sea-based workers.  Around forty-one percent (41.4%) of total remittances were remitted through United States based-banks, followed by Canada (10.8%) and Saudi Arabia (8.7%).
• There is a need to pass a legislation promoting local employment generation through sound local economic development plan. It is also imperative to pass laws that will simplify business permit and licensing process of local governments.

SERBISYO

• Filipinos are becoming impatient on the slow delivery of services to the people.  This is because the national bureaucracy has complex rules and regulations embedded in the system that seems to slowdown service delivery.
• To guarantee the faster delivery of social services to the people,  there is a need to further empower local governments because they are at the frontline of governance in the Philippines.  Local governments can serve faster as they are closer to the people.