HON. EMMANUEL DE GUIA
Resident Futurist
Senate Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, Innovations and Futures Thinking
Hiraya is Real.
The Philippines is the largest and most dynamic Futures movement in the planet.
Sohail Inayatullah
UNESCO Chair
That movement is spreading like wildfire across the Philippines. Since 2019, the Philippines is one of the few countries in the world that has a committee on sustainable development and futures thinking.
Senator Pia S. Cayetano, as the first Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Sustainable Development Goals, Innovations, and Futures Thinking, initiated a massive capacity building and development on Futures Thinking and Strategic in the various government institutions. National Government Agencies such as the Department of Education, Department of Health, National Economic Development Authority, and the Department of Science and Technology were among the first to embed Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight in their planning framework.
At the height of the pandemic in 2021, six leading State universities were chosen for capacity development on Futures Thinking for the top leadership and management of their respective SUCs.
The University of the Philippines-Los Baños took the lead on the Futures of Food Systems in the Philippines with focus on SDG 12-Sustainable Consumption and Production. The Central Luzon State University’s main area of Futures Research is on High Quality and Digitized (HiDi) Tilapia and Central Luzon Aromatic Rice (CLARice). For the Visaya State University, it’s transforming a new narrative for the Futures of Kamote (sweet potato) from a lowly famine food into a high value Space Food.
The sweet possibilities of the Futures of Cacao is what drives the University of Southern Mindanao to explore radical and groundbreaking scenarios for new technologies and uses for their focal commodity.
In the Age of Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT, the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and the Mindanao State University- IIT are working to find AI-powered solutions to the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 especially on Education, Health, Governance, and Sustainable Cities & Communities.
Fast forward to 2022.
Sen. Pia Cayetano sponsored 117 State Universities and Colleges from Batanes to Tawi-Tawi, received at least PHP 2M each in their GAA 2022 to start their Futures Thinking Capacity Development and initialize a Regional Futures Research Agenda to address and achieve the United Nations SDG Challenges 2030.
This initiative continues up to this day with another round of funds for the Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight for research of all State Universities and Colleges in the Philippines under the General Appropriations Act 2023.
As we create more Futures and Strategic Foresight thinkers,planners,and doers in the country, we hope to better anticipate the Futures and seize the unlimited possibilities and opportunities that we can create for our generation and the generations of Filipinos yet to come.
Manawari is Here.