About The Policy Center PH

The Center for Policy Studies and Advocacy on Sustainable Development or The Policy Center is an organization that was borne from the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety—Legal Development Programme (BIRGRS-LDP) Philippines, which was supported through the World Health Organization (WHO). As such, The Policy Center is actually led by some of the LDP Fellows and/or the team that managed LDP Philippines.

The Policy Center is organized both as a think tank and an advocacy center. Given this, its initiatives will not be limited to research and policy studies, but it will implement advocacy projects and/or technical support for the enactment, dissemination and implementation of policies, programs/projects, plans and activities of government or in collaboration with other development partners and civil society organizations.

Our Vision

The Policy Center envisions an inclusive, sustainable development for the Philippines.

Our Mission

We, in The Policy Center, aim to continue with our road safety work, while building our credentials in other Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) areas such as: sustainable cities, public health, clean energy, water and sanitation, climate change, green infrastructure and industries, economic growth, peace and justice.

The Policy Center will pursue SDG work by becoming a platform for multidisciplinary collaboration for evidence-informed policy advocacy

Our Board of Trustees

While The Policy Center is a new organization, its individual Board of Trustees/Managers are technical specialists and have years of experienced in their respective fields.

In their road safety work, for example, the team was able to develop its own stakeholder map for the purpose of mobilizing support for the advocacy. In complementation to the team’s individual skills in policy and legislation, the health policy professors from the College of Public Health, University of the Philippines Manila gave a course to the team entitled, “Translation and Communication of Road Safety Data for Use in Actionable Health Policy and Strategic Advocacy.” Integrated in this course, was a refresher on the topic/s agenda-setting, stakeholder and political-mapping.

Yla Gloria Marie P. Paras, B.S., J.D., M.Sc.
PRESIDENT

She is also a policy consultant on road safety, transport regulation, and other regulatory issues. She is currently the Deputy Director for the Energy Collaboratory at the Manila Observatory and Senior Policy Advisor for the ASEP-CELLS project on renewable energy. She obtained her Master of Science in Regulation (with specialism in Utilities Regulation) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in the United Kingdom; her Juris Doctor from the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines; and her Bachelor of Science in Business Economics degree from the University of the Philippines.

Maria Fatima “Jofti” A. Villena
BOARD OF TRUSTEE

She was the former Project Manager of the Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety-Legal Development Program (BIGRS-LDP) Philippines, as supervised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Center for Integrative and Development Studies, University of the Philippines (UP-CIDS). She had almost 20 years experience in the development field working with various local and international NGOs. Her expertise include: budget and policy advocacy in health [primary health care, health promotions and NCDs], research and technical writing, project management, advocacy and communications, and capacity-building.

She was active in the push for the Universal Health Care law and the Child Safety in Motor Vehicles Act. In these policy advocacies, stakeholder/political-mapping activities necessitated its conduct and she often moderated these processes. In relation to this kind of work, she also facilitated the strategic planning of the National Coalition on Child Road Traffic Injury Prevention Program of SafeKids Philippines, Inc. and also facilitated its local counterpart in Valenzuela City.

Atty. Camille Alcaraz
TREASURER

President and the Legal Counsel of the Lingkod Muntinlupa Foundation (LMF) and the current Trustee of The Policy Center. She was also a former Assistant Secretary for Procurement the DOTr.

She is a finalist in the 2019 Adamson University Faculty Research Presentation organized by the Center for Research and Development of Adamson University through her research entry entitled “Safer Transport and Mobility for Vulnerable Road Users Through Sustainable Transport Alternatives and Intelligent Transport Solutions.”

Amalia Rolloque
BOARD OF TRUSTEE

Previously a Project Officer of the Safe Kids Philippines, Inc., an international NGO dedicated to the prevention of unintentional injuries to children and the promotion of awareness on safety at homes, in schools and on the roads. She is a recognized resource person and presenter on pedestrian safety and injury prevention in various national and international road safety conferences for the past 11 years. She is a Registered Social Worker and was a scholarship grantee of the 2017 Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) and the Johns Hopkins University Global Road Safety Leadership Course held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; the Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety as the Global Alliance Road Safety Advocate 2016 in Memphis, USA; the 2013 VLIR-UOS Road Safety in Asian and Latin American Countries: Principles and Approaches Training in Hasselt University, Belgium; the 2012 FIA Foundation Road Safety Scholarship Program held at London, United Kingdom. She represented the country at the 7th Milestones Global Campaign for Violence Prevention Meeting at WHO Geneva Headquarters in September, 2015.