The government of the Philippines has worked hard towards the Millennium Development Goals, especially the reduction of poverty. The Philippines are on track with the majority of the goals and have paid special attention to eliminating poverty since the 1980's.

Target 1: Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
The amount of people considered poor has risen to 39.4% in 2000 from 36.8% in 1997. This was caused by slowed growth and greater unemployment.

Target 2: Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
The amount of people in the Philippines without enough food has increased to about 16.4 million people in 2000 compared to 1985 when there were 15.4 million people. Unfortunately, many people are too poor to buy enough food.

Target 3: Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
There has been excellent progress on this goal as 93.9% of the population could read in 1994, compared to 89.9% in 1989. the amount of children attending school has also improved, as 96.9% of children were going to school in 2000, compared to 85.1% in 1991.

Target 4:Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
Girls in the Philippines have equal access to education. In fact more girls attend school than boys with 97.1% of girls attending primary school, compared to 96.8% of boys and 68.3% of girls going to high school compared to 62.6% of boys.

Target 5: Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
There have been many ideas about how to reduce child mortality in the Philippines. One of the most successful has been immunization, as in 2000, 65% of children aged 12 to 23 months were immunized compared to 58% in 1997. Further education has also helped improve child mortality as more children are breast fed and many children now receive a Vitamin A supplement every 6 months.

Target 6: Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
About 1 in every 100 Filipino women will die because of pregnancy complications which means these deaths are only about 1% of all deaths in the Philippines.

Target 7: Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
Between 1984 and 1992 the number of HIV/AIDS cases stayed below 100 each year. Since 1993 the number of cases has increased over 100 but is still below 200. HIV/AIDS is usually found in Filipino men and most cases are passed through sexual intercourse.

Target 8: Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
Tuberculosis is one of the biggest killers in the Philippines as 75 Filipinos die from the disease every day. Polio was a serious concern, but the Filipino government managed to combat the disease and the country was declared polio free in 2000. Unfortunately because of a lack of vaccines and funding the health system has gone downhill and in 2001 polio was again a problem in the Philippines. Other problem diseases include diphtheria, tetanus and measles.

Target 9: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
There has been serious deforestation in the Philippines with the 6 million hectares of forest in 1990 being reduced to 5 million in 1997. This has been caused by fire, logging, pest, mining and population expansion. This also effects the diverse plants and animals that live in the Philippines.

Target 10: Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
Since 1960 the amount of houses with access to drinking water has increased by 2% each year. It is likely that this goal will be achieved as in 2000, 78.5% of household had safe drinking water. This is an increase from the 73.7% in 1991, it is a small decrease from the 1999 figure of 76.1%

Target 11: Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020
In 2000 it was estimated that there were approximately 7.5 million slum dwellers. 1.3 of these live in built up areas, and 57% live in Manila.

Target 13: Address the least developed countries' special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction
National debt was at Php 2 648.8 billion in 2000, which was an increase from the Php 768.5 billion in 1991. This severe increase is believed to have been caused by the slowed growth in 1997 as from 1994 to 1996 there was less foreign debt and much growth because of surplus.

Conclusion:
The Philippines has made much progress on the Millennium Development Goals but there needs to be more policies towards global development.

Gloria Macapagal-