Examining the DFA's Economic Security Strategy and the Elusiveness of Stable Job Creation

Abstract

A perennial policy challenge facing the Philippines is job generation. Despite the recent trend of economic expansion, the economy has fallen short of creating more and better jobs. For its part, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has crafted its strategic plans to include job generation in line with the economic security pillar. Back in 2002, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople had high hopes that the DFA will be an “effective instrument” to help reduce unemployment from 4 million to 1.5 million by 2013. However a decade later 2.8 million Filipinos remained unemployed. That “target” stays unreached by the end of 2016 as 2.4 million Filipinos are still jobless; thus begging the following questions: Why is stable job creation so difficult to achieve? Where does the DFA’s economic security strategy figure in the country’s development framework? DFA’s economic security strategies went through many changes as the Department strove to produce favorable outcomes concerning job creation as well as poverty reduction. In the DFA Strategic Plan 2003-2013, searching new markets for the country’s local goods and services and using official development assistance (ODA) were identified as key strategies. These strategies were part of DFA’s mandate as the main actor in promoting development diplomacy, which entails designing and harnessing foreign relations in the active pursuit of rapid and sustained long-term growth of the Philippine economy.