The Philippine Government is committed to increasing the country's Gross National Product (GNP) from P27,783 million in 1969 to P36,308 million by 1974. These targets will require fixed investments averaging 19.7 percent of GNP over the four-year period. Agriculture is expected to increase output by 6.25 percent annually, maintaining its share of about 34 percent of the Net Domestic Product. Industry will put in fixed capital formation totaling P8,114 million. The public sector will devote about P1,160 million annually in fixed capital formation. It is hoped that all these activities will raise the optimum annual growth rate by 5.6 percent and increase per capita GNP from P779 to P841 between 1969 and 1974.
The Philippine Four-Year Development Plan (FY 1971-74) seeks to solve the "dualistic nature" of the Philippine economy, wherein a sluggish agricultural sector does not seem to benefit effectively from progress in the export and industrial sectors. Farmeres, with their meager incomes, are not able to provide the necessary market to support expansion in manufacturing. While the plan clearly sees this sectoral imbalance, however, it is strangely mute on the question of the spatial imbalance that characterizes Philippine development. Aside from a few notable sections in the plan, there is no mention of where geographically the expected investments that would raise economic development rates will occur. The Plan sees the problems of rapid population growth (expected to go down from 3.7 to 3.24 percent a year within the period) but is silent on the population movements or the pattern of human settlements its investment activities will generate. The most that the plan would say is that "regional development will be undertaken in order to reduce the income gaps in the different regions of the country."
I submit, in this paper, that what is needed in the Philippines is more than a mere "revision of existing institutional arrangements." The lack of coordination and general ineffectiveness of the country's regional development program is most likely due to something more basic--the need for an effective national urban strategy in the country that would integrate the spatial characteristics of development with the sectoral aspects and link the patterns of rural and urban settlements in the national territory to the overall economic and social activities that enhance development.