Senator Pia S. Cayetano opened the first hearing of the Senate Committee on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Innovation, and Futures Thinking in the 20th Congress with a reminder that with less than five years left before 2030, the Philippines must accelerate its efforts to meet its commitments.
Drawing from her years of experience as Senior Vice Chair of the Senate Finance Committee handling the health budget, she pointed to the gap between actual improvements and official reports. “I’ve been working on health since 2004 and I can attest that we’re so much better off now than before. Having said that, how come your data shows that progress in SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) is regressing?” she asked.
Addressing the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DepDev), the Senator inquired how Congress could help close data gaps and strengthen monitoring. “You have data gaps, my question to you is, is there anything we can do to help in the next five years, to be able to include other indicators? Are they very difficult to do, does it need a bigger budget? Just tell us what we need to do so that we can assess properly,” she said.
Leave a Reply