SINCE the start of the community quarantine in March, the private sector has been extending support to the city government of Iloilo – in cash and in kind.
It is good that Iloilo City’s Mayor Jerry Treñas recognizes the importance of a strong partnership between the city government and the private sector.
“Kanami sang aton public-private partnership,” says the mayor.
This collaboration must be amplified throughout the country. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic calls for deeper partnership between the government and civil society. As a country that prides itself on having one of the most vibrant civil society and non-government sectors, the government must tap civil society to ensure that policies work and address the needs of the people, most especially the marginalized. For instance, a movement led by civil society groups in 2015 that aimed to fight extreme poverty in the country has already shifted to measuring poverty based on expenditure and consumption.
But there are challenges to working with government at different levels — from data collection to the robustness of program implementation, to having a sound framework for monitoring and evaluation. So yes, there must be an open dialogue with the government and the private sector on how best to work together and move forward.
It must be pointed out that while the government has implemented solutions to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on poverty, such as the Social Amelioration Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, these would only probably tide Filipinos for over the next few months. There have to be more sustained solutions – and they could come from the public, private, and civil society sectors on public health, labor, and education.
For workers, there must be a holistic human resource development strategy that looks at displaced workers who might be underemployed or who might need to be reskilled or upskilled to be able to cope and adjust to the new realities of the various industries and workplaces. There is a need to focus on the partnership between the national and local governments, particularly in harnessing context-specific livelihood opportunities.
If there is one thing we should learn from the ongoing pandemic, it is the importance of partnership between the government and civil society. Public cooperation is needed if we are to overcome the current health and economic crises.
