Views from the Field: In Conversation with the EU Ambassador to the Philippines

The Philippines, comprising over 7,000 Pacific islands, has wide gaps in living standards and opportunities and faces numerous development challenges. EU Ambassador Franz Jessen explains how the EU is working with the Duterte administration on areas such as human rights, health and law and order.

Capacity4dev (C4D): What are the biggest challenges for the EU Delegation to the Philippines?

C4D: How is the EU supporting welfare improvements? Which projects or programmes have made the biggest impact in your view?

Franz Jessen (FJ): Health and education are very big challenges. The EU’s support to the health sector in the Philippines amounts to €111 million, and includes three health sector budget support programmes.

Dental Health Buses

Dental health is one crucial issue. Over 90% of Filipinos suffer from tooth decay and gum disease, and it affects almost every Filipino at one point or another in his lifetime. The reported poor oral health of Filipino children in schools is alarming – it is reported that there is only one dentist for every 70,000 students.

So we have financed a number of ‘Dental Health Buses’ in regions where there was no access to dentists. A dental bus is like a big van with two dental chairs, with a dentist who is seconded to the bus for a month or two and travels around from one remote place to the next. We’ve funded 186 dental buses with €14 million of the EU health sector budget support funds channelled to the Treasury, and the Department of Health has funded 243 more dental buses with another €18 million. Nation-wide, they can see up to 50,000 patients in one week.

One challenge was that many of the dentists were female, and in some cases they were not comfortable being alone or even with a colleague in the dental buses because they would be harassed. The issue was solved by ensuring that one male, either driver or dentist, was always present on the bus.

The ‘Dental Health Buses’ greatly contribute to bringing first level health care closer to the poor and vulnerable in remote communities. They are an excellent example of good collaboration between national, regional and local authorities. Aside from regular tooth care, the dental health team also provides education regarding preventive dental hygiene in the communities.

Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

We have also had programmes in population control, which in a Catholic country like the Philippines is a controversial issue. The previous government worked with some difficulty with the Church on this. A population growth rate of 2% is very, very high: It means basically a doubling of the population every 30 or 35 years, and that of course is not sustainable over time. Family size is still very big, and divorce not that frequent – there are a lot of legal constraints on the possibility of divorce. The situation of women is not always that easy, and violence within the family is also an issue. The good part is that civil society is very active in the Philippines, so many of the things that are taking place in society are things that we actually get to know about and therefore are able to react to.

The EU funded a specific programme to support the reproductive health needs of indigenous people in Mindanao which ended in 2016. In addition the EU funds several civil society organisations (CSOs) providing modern contraceptives to poor populations in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas of ARMM [Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao]. These CSOs are also very active advocates at the national level.

The incoming administration under President Duterte announced in its 10-point socio-economic agenda the "full implementation of the Reproductive Health Law". The 2017 budget allocated for the implementation of the Reproductive Health Law has increased by almost 80%. However the country continues to report high unmet needs for reproductive health services. The Reproductive Health Bill, mandating amongst others public facilities to provide modern family planning methods, was passed in 2012 but put on hold till April 2014, when the Supreme Court lifted the restraining order. Unfortunately a new Temporary Restraining Order was issued in June 2015, prohibiting public facilities from purchasing and distributing contraceptives considered to be abortive. This Temporary Restraining Order, if not lifted, will seriously hamper access of women to modern contraceptives.

C4D: How is the Delegation working to overcome some of the challenges the country is facing in terms of law and order?

FJ: We try to work hand-in-hand with the government and align our priorities with theirs. We try to do the right thing from our point of view at the same time. A good example would be the very large legal programmes that we have, where we work with the police forces. We are trying to introduce what we call community policing, bringing the policemen closer to the local community: rather than solving the crime, trying to prevent the crime from happening. It’s a different way of looking at it in the Philippines, and it’s quite an adjustment for them to see how it is being done in Europe and other parts of the world.

At the same, we are working with the justice system, trying to speed up procedures. Trials take for ever, and there are ongoing cases that are up to 12 years old. So we are working with them to see how they can be sped up. I think the rule of law is probably the top priority for us. It affects so many issues in the Philippines, from human rights to economic development – you need trust in the enforcement of contracts in order to have a good business environment.

Another area is drug abuse. The Department of Health requested the EU to provide highly specialized technical assistance to support rehabilitation of people using illegal drugs. The country faces an unprecedented addiction treatment demand as over 1 million people surrendered [themselves] to the authorities as “drug users” (92%) or “drug pushers” (8%).

The EU is providing technical assistance and supporting capacity building activities to set up voluntary drug rehabilitation services such as outpatient rehabilitation clinics and recovery homes. The outpatient clinics are specialty treatment services, scheduled to be located in hospital compounds or close to health care facilities. The recovery homes are small residential facilities providing care to about 25 to maximum 50 people, who need more intensive care in addition to the treatment provided through outpatient clinics.

C4D: How is unemployment being tackled? What are the Philippines’ economic priorities?

C4D: A significant proportion of working-age Filipinos find jobs abroad. What is the impact on the domestic economy and on development?

FJ: The Philippines is a country with a very large group of its workers overseas. Much of the economy has been driven by remittances. Sometimes when you are travelling around the country you have the feeling that there are many villages and small towns almost driven by overseas earnings.

It’s very well organised, and it’s something that’s been going on for decades. There’s a whole structure in Manila helping it work. There’s a very strong commitment to contracts, so it’s really regulated. It’s also interesting to see where they go to work, which is basically the Middle East, where there is a very large group, 12 million in total; then Hong Kong and Japan, and also the US and Europe.

So far it works well in the sense that people, after having worked abroad, come back when they start to raise a family, or when they want to retire. So there’s a very large part of the construction industry that’s been driven by overseas earnings. But it’s also a bit of a drain on the capacity of the country. Of women aged 20 to 50, I think almost 30% are out of the country, which is a very large proportion, especially as the people out of the country are probably the most productive. The ones who stay behind are in many cases raising families and so temporarily out of the labour market.

With the new development of the economy, I think you will probably see a larger group staying behind. I’m thinking about what they call business processing outsourcing, BPO, which is really a catchword in Manila, and has attracted a lot of young people. There they have the advantage of the language and the flexibility of Philippine workers.

C4D: How is the EU Delegation working with the Philippines on human rights issues? For example, President Duterte is talking about bringing back the death penalty.

FJ: It’s very mixed on the human rights front. There is a very strong legal tradition, and many rights are fully respected - you have a court system behind that. But you also have issues such as too much street violence. Last year there was a spate of killings, with the police reporting that around two-and-a-half-thousand people were killed or executed over a two-month period. It’s a very high number for a country the size of the Philippines.

We feel the reintroduction of capital punishment would not help in the way that many people in the Philippines expect. But the idea to reintroduce capital punishment has enormous popular support, and the discussion is not very nuanced unfortunately. We are trying to bring European experiences into play so that they can see that this may not be the best way forward.

There are some Philippine nationals sitting on death row in other countries. This of course is a concern for the government in Manila, and if they were to do reintroduce capital punishment, they would weaken their ability to resolve these issues in other countries for their own nationals.

C4D: How does the Delegation in Manila collaborate with neighbouring Delegations and countries?

FJ: We work with ASEAN (the Association of South East Asian Nations) especially on political issues, such as on the South China Sea, or the West Philippine Sea, as we call it. There’s very close coordination with the other Delegations in the region. We also work with Japan, Korea and China, because the economic influence of those three partners of course is very big in the Philippines.

When I came just a year ago, there were 12 EU Member States present, and this year it’s 15. Member States are looking at new economic opportunities in the Philippines. Sweden, Poland and Hungary will be opening up, and we work hand-in-hand with them. My impression is that they are focussed on the economic opportunities, and that’s what is driving the renewed interest in the Philippines.

C4D: Is there much in common between the EU and ASEAN?

FJ: The Philippines is a medium-sized power, in economic terms about the size of Denmark, and in population bigger than Germany. So in a sense, it’s a country that we know from Europe. They strongly believe that they have an interest to work with us in the international rules-based system, because they are facing similar challenges to us in getting their voice heard on the global stage. Our Member States do it with the EU, and the Philippines do it to some extent with ASEAN. It makes sure that their priorities are heard on the global stage. So we have very large cooperation between the EU and ASEAN, and the Philippines is one of our closest allies within that group.

Further reading:

Find out more about how the EU works with the Philippines by visiting the EU Delegation's website.

Banner image credit: Woman receives a health check-up, World Bank Photo Collection, Creative Commons license 2.0