Hoyumpa, Kyla Zyrene J.

ACT213
2021-170119 Economic Development

ACTIVITY 1
INTRODUCTION TO ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT

Scenario 1
Why the market, even in developed economies, did not provide sufficient supply of
healthcare?
As stated in the first scenario, the health care systems around the world experienced
a drastic change and is suddenly sagged under pressure. For me, it is not that the market
did not provide sufficient supply for our healthcare systems. I strongly believe that there is
enough supply for every country, even for the third-world countries such as ours, Philippines.
It is just that there are other factors that majorly affected the supply chain such as the mass
panic buying and hoarding. In my opinion, the supply would be enough if the supply is
allocated based on one’s needs. Or in other words, having economic equity can be the
solution for addressing the scarcity in terms of needs in health care systems. The other
possible problem I see in terms of supply is that even there is supply, the access to such
essentials is limited. These supplies can take months to be delivered and with that, securing
the supply chain would be crucial.

Scenario 2
“Is it that low-income countries cannot afford to improve their health care systems at all?”
“Can governments not show some level of effort?” “Or is that government priorities are
oftentimes misaligned?”
As I see it, both the government’s priorities and level of effort is not enough in terms
of improving the health care system of our country. One of the examples is when the
government prioritized the Manila Bay dolomite sand project when in fact, they can use the
money to provide enough PPEs for the frontliners. Also, mass testing was never achieved
when in the first place, it should’ve been done even before the pandemic “broke out”. More
importantly, the government has no concrete plan for the whole COVID 19 pandemic ever
since it started last year, March 2020. The government didn’t present a solution to the public
what their plans are, instead, they extended the lockdown and just changed their rules that
are followed by most of the citizens that is given by the IATF. These are just some of the
things that I noticed in terms of the government’s failure in terms of responding to this global
pandemic and in my opinion, these mishandlings of the government are the reasons why our
economy and most importantly in these trying times, our health care system, is failing.