The Supreme Court of the Philippines has introduced several reforms to address the longstanding issues of high volume of pending cases and severe delays in case disposition, which consequently deny citizens the ability to access swift and fair justice. A key reform is the Revised Guidelines for Continuous Trial of Criminal Cases (CT), which aims to expedite trials and resolutions by imposing strict timelines on existing rules for court action and introducing best practices for speedy disposition of criminal cases. Researchers assessed the effect of CT on court efficiency by comparing changes in outcomes two years before and two years after the implementation of the reform. They found that while the reform increased court efficiency, it did not significantly reduce backlog.

Digital payments offer a fast and transparent way to distribute cash aid to households that have been economically hard hit by the pandemic. In the Philippines, researchers conducted a survey to learn about the experience of recipients of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP), an emergency cash transfer program implemented by the government. Results revealed that recipients were highly satisfied with their withdrawal experience of digital cash transfers, however, account awareness and use among recipients remained low.

Around the world, 152 million children are engaged in child labor, and in the Philippines many of the children working illegally are in occupations that pose a threat to their health and safety. Because poverty is considered to be the root cause of child labor, policymakers have aimed to reduce child labor by improving the economic welfare of poor households that are using or vulnerable to using child labor. In the Philippines, an IPA research team worked with the government to test whether providing poor households with a one-time productive asset transfer equivalent to US$518, along with a short business training, improved economic well-being and reduced in child labor. Preliminary results indicate that the program increased household business activity, food security, and some measures of child welfare, but it also led to a modest increase in child labor from family-based economic activities, specifically for children who had not worked before.