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APPC Webinar 4: 23 September 2021 | 9:00–11:30 AM (GMT+8) Robust and Healthy Workforce

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed many issues and challenges with the current design of social protection systems around the world. Governments, businesses, and households alike have embarked on unprecedented large-scale experiments, particularly regarding work and school arrangements, to minimize exposure and cope with the pandemic. While digitalization and the Fourth Industrial Revolution have facilitated the transition to remote work and distance learning, differences in the ability to access these technologies have exacerbated existing inequalities among households and across countries.

At the same time, COVID-19 highlighted existing health inequities faced by low-compensation workers as they are more likely to live in crowded conditions or areas with high levels of pollution, take congested public transportation, lack the financial resources to afford adequate protection even while away from the workplace, feel compelled to go to work even on sick days as the opportunity cost of not working is just too high, and have pre-existing health conditions given the environment they are in and the stresses they encounter. These workers are likely to suffer more should they get infected during the pandemic or during outbreaks post-pandemic. The design of work-related policies and programs for the future, including social protection design, must therefore take into consideration the circumstances of these workers to ensure equity and inclusion.

In this webinar session, we will tackle the following issues:

  • What needs to be fixed in social protection systems for workers to reduce inequities and ensure inclusion during and after the pandemic?
  • How has digital technology been used to cope with the impacts of COVID-19 on labor and employment and social protection? What are the best practices and models around the world that a developing country like the Philippines may emulate?
  • What is the future of education and training, labor and employment, and social protection? What should the new and better normal in these areas look like post-pandemic?

PROGRAM

  9:00 am to 11:30 am Manila Time (GMT +8)  

APPC Webinar 4: Robust and Healthy Workforce

Speakers
Health: The People’s First and Foremost Agenda in the Private Sector
The severity of the pandemic is unprecedented in living memory.  As responsible businesses, we pivot to changing the people strategy fast and thinking ahead in order to protect the business. Undaunted, we never lost sight of our long-term plans while accepting the brutal realities of the present. We believed that we will emerge from this. We need the people to bring us to our future. The ways of working have changed and the people were affected on a personal and professional level. The focus on well-being has never been so important.

Let us learn how RLC, the leading diversified real estate in the country has led the health and safety agenda not only of its employees but also their families and the community. How they used their operating advantage to contribute - claiming responsibility and accountability to take action for the individual and collective good.

  • Ms. Pryncess Hyacinth P. Esguerra
    Director, Human Resource Department
    Robinsons Land Corporation

Future Jobs, Future Skills in the Philippines
The presentation will show some of salient stylized facts about the labor market and workforce of the Philippines before the pandemic, the impact of COVID-19 on jobs, and key policy areas for post pandemic jobs and workforce development. In particular, it will discuss skills development policies for short term recovery and rebuilding of the economy as well as for longer term green, resilient, and inclusive development.

  • Dr. Yoonyoung Cho
    Senior Economist
    Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice
    The World Bank

Panelists
Dr. Srinivas Tata 
Director
Social Development Division
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific

Ms. Ahmma Charisma Lobrin-Satumba
Executive Director III
Institute for Labor Studies

Moderator
Dr. Kris A. Francisco
Research Fellow
Philippine Institute for Development Studies

  11:15 am to 11:30 am Manila Time (GMT +8)  

Closing Program

Closing Remarks
Senator Juan Edgardo "Sonny" M. Angara
Chairperson, Senate Committee on Finance
Chairperson, Senate Committee on Youth
Senate of the Philippines

Host
Dr. Sheila V. Siar
Director, Research Information Department
Philippine Institute for Development Studies

PROFILES

MS. PRYNCESS HYACINTH P. ESGUERRA

Director, Human Resource Department
Robinsons Land Corporation

Ms. Pryncess Esguerra is the Director of Human Resources, Robinsons Land Corporation (RLC). Prior to RLC, she was Director, Organization Development and Talent Management of JG Summit Holdings, Inc.  In the past years, her functional focus were employee engagement, HR for new businesses, organization development and talent management. She has a niche background for doing both corporate and line work from various sectors such as hotels, fintech, telecommunications, manufacturing and pharmaceutical distribution. She advanced in HR Leadership as the 2018 Board of Trustee, People Management Association of the Philippines, the pre-eminent and most authoritative HR organization in the country. She completed a Degree in BS Psychology, Cum Laude, from St. Paul College of Manila. She has also taken units for MBA at the University of the Philippines, Diliman.

DR. YOONYOUNG CHO

Senior Economist
Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice
The World Bank

Dr. Yoonyoung (Yoon) Cho is a Senior Economist at the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice at the World Bank. She works on issues related to labor markets and social protection including skills, entrepreneurship, migration, and jobs as well as safety nets. She has extensive experience in development work covering the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. Her research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals in the field of economics and development as well as numerous World Bank publications and knowledge products. Prior to joining the World Bank as a Young Professional in 2008, she worked for three years at the Korea Development Institute. She received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2005.

DR. SRINIVAS TATA

Director
Social Development Division
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific

Dr. Srinivas Tata is serving as the Director of the Social Development Division of ESCAP for the last two years. He has 16 years of experience of working with the United Nations.

He has previously served as the Chief of the Capacity Development and Partnerships Section of the Strategy and Programme Management Division, and provided support to all ESCAP Divisions and Offices for the formulation and implementation of technical cooperation projects and managed partnerships with a wide range of stakeholders.  He also served as the Chief of Social Policy and Population Section in the Social Development Division from 2012 to 2016, focusing on population ageing, demographic change, migration and health. He was also posted as the Deputy Chief of the Regional Commissions New York Office from 2010 to 2012. 

MS. AHMMA CHARISMA LOBRIN-SATUMBA

Executive Director III
Institute for Labor Studies

Ms. Ahmma Charisma Lobrin-Satumba has been serving the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for 26 years now. She is currently the Executive Director of the Institute for Labor Studies, the DOLE’s policy research and advocacy arm.

Under her leadership, ILS started the discourse on the Future of Work to influence policy-making towards ensuring a future-ready workforce and decent work for all. A staunch advocate of social protection, she is part of the core group that works towards institutionalizing a social protection floor in the Philippines.

Before joining the Institute, she had worked in various DOLE agencies that promote the rights and welfare of workers, such as the Bureau of Women and Young Workers, the National Wages and Productivity Commission, and the Bureau of Workers with Special Concerns.

She graduated from the De La Salle University with a bachelor's degree in political science. She is armed with a master’s degree in public management from the Ateneo School of Government and in national security administration from the National Defense College of the Philippines.

SENATOR JUAN EDGARDO "SONNY" M. ANGARA

Chairperson, Senate Committee on Finance
Chairperson, Senate Committee on Youth
Senate of the Philippines

To provide opportunities to every Filipino family is the goal of every measure and policy pushed by Senator Sonny Angara. He has sponsored or authored more than 200 laws in his 16 years as legislator—first as Aurora Province representative from 2004 to 2013, and then as Senator from 2013 to the present. Senator Sonny has authored such landmark legislation as the Free College Law, the Free Kindergarten Law, the Universal Healthcare Act, the expanded Public Employment Service Office (PESO) Act, the Kasambahay Law, the OWWA Charter, the Expanded Senior Citizens Act, the National Athletes and Coaches Benefits and incentives Act, and the National Sports Academy Act. 

He now serves as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, and is advocating a “Tatak Pinoy (Proudly Filipino)” strategy for making Philippine goods and services more sophisticated and globally competitive. Seeing the potential of Filipino professionals to succeed further in the digital economy, Senator Angara filed the National Digital Careers Act and the National Digital Transformation Act—bills which have garnered renewed interest in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Senator Sonny is a graduate of Xavier School, the London School of Economics, the University of the Philippines College of Law, and Harvard Law School.

DR. KRIS A. FRANCISCO

Research Fellow
Philippine Institute for Development Studies

Dr. Kris Francisco is a Research Fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies. Prior to joining PIDS, Dr. Francisco is an Associate Professor at De La Salle University School of Economics. She was also a Consultant at the Department of Trade and Industry (Philippines) and an Associate at the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo, Japan. Her areas of specialization are in Development Economics, Applied Econometric Analysis and Transportation Economics. Dr. Francisco a PhD degree in Public Economics from the National Graduate Research Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo Japan.

This webinar is organized by Philippine Institute for Development Studies, with support from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

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