RESEARCH ACTIVITIES In 2019, the Institute completed a total of 40 projects. Below is the list of completed projects organized by theme. For each project, a summary of the project objectives, key findings, and policy recommendations is given. COMPLETED PROJECTS Agriculture, natural resources, and environmental management 1. Towards a more inclusive agricultural insurance program Given that a third of the country’s workforce depend on the agriculture sector, it is crucial that efforts are undertaken towards mitigation of the effects of natural calamities, pests, and other shocks and agricultural risks. One of these efforts is agricultural insurance as provided for by the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC). Using information from the PCIC, key informant interviews and focus group discussions with agricultural producers, and findings from earlier studies on agricultural insurance, this study examined the constraints in, opportunities, and efforts for achieving impact and inclusion of agricultural insurance programs in the Philippines. The study found that there is a need to improve penetration rates and targeting of beneficiaries for the free insurance program. Penetration rates may be improved by PCIC establishing partnerships with more local government units in providing information dissemination and assistance to their constituents. The Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA), which is used for targeting beneficiaries of free agricultural insurance, has issues of exclusion and leakage that needs to be addressed. Moreover, as provided for in the proposed legislations of senators and congressmen, Congress may look into the opportunity of amending the PCIC Charter and expanding its role as a reinsurer for other companies that are willing to offer agricultural insurance. 2. Assessment of the Free Irrigation Service Act The country’s irrigation systems have had a long history of recovering maintenance cost from farmers. The Free Irrigation Service Act of 2018 was a radical departure from this policy. Based on examining secondary data, and primary information from key informant interviews and focus group discussions, this study finds that the main benefit to farmers from free irrigation is the savings from paying the Irrigation Service Fee (ISF) in the case of National Irrigation Systems (NIS); and the subsidy for operations and maintenance (O&M) in the case of Communal Irrigation Systems (CIS). The overall level of O&M may have increased despite the likely decline in O&M 1 subsidy for NIS. However, while beneficiaries of free irrigation are poorer than average, a large majority of potentially beneficiaries are non-poor; to achieve equity objectives, targeted transfers are probably superior to in-kind transfers such as free irrigation. Several recommendations are provided: 1) Continue to pursue irrigation management transfer (IMT) within the context of free irrigation for both NIS and CIS, based on minimum maintenance for NIA maintenance, and transparent maintenance standards for both NIA and IA; 2) Provide for sustained and increasing O&M subsidy, but make it available only on a performance basis; 3) Explore water-saving as a performance criterion in O&M subsidy; 4) Transform NIA into a service providing agency specializing in technical assistance to IAs, contract design, and performance monitoring; 5) Introduce a mandatory review comparing FISA with other social assistance and social protection schemes in achieving equity objectives. 3. Answering Critical Questions on Mining in the Philippines (Phase 2) The People’s Small-scale Mining Act of 1991 (RA 7076), relatively failed in its intention to promote, develop, protect and rationalize viable small-scale mining activities employment generation and equitable sharing of the nation's wealth and natural resources. Three decades after the law’s passing, most small-scale mining operations, particularly for precious metals and non-metals, remain wanting in terms of operational transparency and legal compliance. While acknowledging potential contributions to the economy, small-scale mining in the country has been beset with policy and tenurial overlaps in mineralized areas aggravated by enforcement issues among stakeholders. The law is clear about the accorded protection and limits to extractive operations, but the same clarity in the provisions of RA 7076 make legalization and formalization difficult to ground. This has led to pervasive informality and black market operations in the sector, with the Philippine government losing a majority its supposed share. It is clear that RA7076 needs to be revised in order to properly regulate small-scale mining activities and promote legal compliance and formalization. Strategic sectoral direction, including the formulation of horizontal and vertical roadmaps, should start with comprehensive profiling at the community, municipal, and provincial levels. Such would enhance regulatory compliance on the part of small-scale mining operators, ensure social protection among mining workers, and facilitate enforcement among relevant bureaucratic units. 4. Welfare Impacts of Rice Tariffication The Rice Liberalization Act (RA 11203), signed last February 2019, reverses decades-long placing quantitative restrictions on rice importation administered by the National Food Authority. The Act goes further by dismantling interventionist policy in the rice industry by divesting the Authority of its regulatory powers. This study takes a long term perspective by conducting ex ante impact assessment based on a computable general equilibrium model with welfare effects disaggregated by income decile. Under liberalization, rice imports are far larger than under the interventionist policy. Farmgate and retail prices are significantly lower under liberalization. Hence, farmers are worse off under liberalization, while consumers are better off. On the side of 2 farmers, the policy causes a fall in palay output as well as area harvested, relative to that under an interventionist policy. Policy implications include: i) to continue enforcement of RA 11203; ii) to focus efforts on providing offsetting compensation for losers from the reform; and iii) investigate the state of competition in rice marketing and diligently enforce competition policy in the rice industry. Human development, labor markets, and poverty 5. 3rd Wave Impact Evaluation of the Pantawid Pamilya The third impact evaluation (IE Wave 3) reassesses the short-term and intermediate term program impact on health, education, household welfare and other socio-behavioral domains. It employed a regression discontinuity design to analyze program impact. Generally, the results of the evaluation indicate that the program shows desirable impact on most of the target education and health outcomes of children and pregnant women. In addition, the program has shown positive impacts on household welfare such as income and food security; large positive impacts on community participation, and awareness of basic means to mitigate vulnerabilities such as disaster preparedness among adults; and, strong impact on “grit” or determination of children. Nevertheless, some results of the study are also unexpected and are inconsistent with previous evaluations. A Randomized Control Trial (RCT) cohort study using the original Wave 1 sample was also conducted to analyze lock-in effects of program inputs on education and health outcomes of specific cohorts. The assumption is that time-critical inputs are likely to have a larger effect when provided during a specific time period, i.e., the first 1000 days of life, than if provided outside that period. The findings show that timely exposure to the program benefits result in lower prevalence of severe underweight, and prevalence of illness with diarrhea and fever. It also found no significant impact in the birth interval and proportion of women in the control and treatment groups that achieved the ideal birth spacing duration of at least 18 months. Small impacts on education outcomes were observed among the cohort of children 5 or 6 years old in February 2009 to January 2012. 6. Gender Equity in Education: Helping the Boys Catch Up The study assesses gender equity in education in the Philippines. It argues that unlike the global stylized characterization, there is a need for a more nuanced view of gender equity in the Philippines. In the past, Filipino males were somewhat more educated than females. Since middle of 1970s, however, males are lagging females and the education gender gap is widening. The paper argues that today gender equality advocacy should go beyond the stereo-typical focus on girls’ education and pay more attention to issues that are hurting boys’ education. Failure to pursue win-win strategies to address gender bias in education working against boys will mean the country is foregoing valuable opportunities to raise equity and economic returns to its investment 3 in education. This paper suggests conducting experiments to deepen current understanding of boys’ educational issues and develop tools for effectively removing existing impediments to schooling and learning. 7. Understanding the educational mobility of men and women and the schooling progression of boys and girls in the Philippines: A regional perspective Current global and local trends show that boys have consistently underperformed in the academic front. However, patterns at the regional level reveal that there are regions in which men have comparable schooling years with women. Adopting