Fairy land (conclusion)

I won’t go through the rest of the litany of the Arroyo administration’s supposed achievements. I will just talk about a few that caught my eye.

Take this one. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s strength in 2000 was 12,571. Nine years later, it has fallen to 11,454. How on earth did they get such an accurate assessment? Do they have spies living in the MILF camps? I can’t possibly believe that number. What matters more is that 719 soldiers died during President Gloria Arroyo’s first three years in office compared to 78 during Fidel Ramos’ entire term. I certainly wouldn’t want to be a soldier under Arroyo.

Her administration failed to meet its target of neutralizing the New People’s Army, the longest-running communist insurgency in Asia, by 2010. In 2008, the Philippines earned the notorious distinction of having the most number of internally displaced persons, topping Kenya, Congo and Iraq.

There were 100,000 new classrooms built in nine years which now puts the classroom-to-pupil ratio at 1:39 for elementary and 1:55 for high school (this goes as high as 1:79 for primary and 1:82 for secondary in some schools in Metro Manila). But this is still far from achieving the recommended 1:25 classroom-to-student ratio so that students can be properly educated.

The Department of Education estimates that 10,661 more classrooms are needed. By our estimate, there is a shortage of some 200,000 classrooms if we use the 25:1 student to classroom ratio. The Education department’s projection is based on a 45:1 ratio and two shifts (morning and afternoon).

Children should be encouraged to question, not just accept unquestioningly what the teacher says. People must be able to think for themselves, encouraged to display initiative and analyze the consequences of their action. This requires much smaller class sizes. In primary school, this should be 20 or less. Above 35, it becomes impossible. The interaction degenerates to lecturing, not teaching. Teachers must be able to teach a few, not lecture to many.

The standard of education of a Filipino child is now below that of Zambia and Tanzania according to the United Nations. Everyone agrees (and the numbers are there) this government failed to provide the quality education it pledged. In 1999, the Philippines ranked 36th out of 38 countries in both Math and Science proficiency as assessed by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. Four years later, the country fared even worse when it ranked 41st for Math and 42nd for Science out of 45 countries. The “improved quality of education” the government ad claims is not supported by independent assessments.

In the recent 2010 Education For All Global Monitoring Report by the United Nations, the Philippines was cited for lack of policies to improve education especially of the poor and said that the country was in “real danger” of not meeting its target of providing universal primary education by 2015.

Today, out of 100 Filipino kids who enter school, only 65 get to finish primary. Back in 1998, 70 got to finish; while only 42 finish high school compared to 54 who did in 1998. Add to that the fact that public expenditure per high school student (as a percentage of GDP per capita) fell from 10.7 percent in 1999 to 9.2 percent in 2004. While the education department has been getting a bigger allocation from the government in current pesos (from P90-billion in 1999 to P149 billion in 2008), there’s been no significant increase in real terms—P90-billion versus P92.5-billion, for example. The total DepEd budget’s share to the national government’s budget has been declining (19 percent in 1999 to a little over 11 percent in 2008).

Those are the real numbers that matter, and Mrs. Arroyo has failed to improve any of them. The figures have, contrary to what the ads proclaim, gotten worse.

Isn’t it a little unfair to compare the number of houses the government built in the two and a half years of Estrada to the nine years of Arroyo? On an annualized basis, Ramos built 33,982 per year, Estrada 39,306, and Arroyo 32,777. Now who who did better?

I’ll give her the roll-on-roll-off. It was a good idea that worked, but to claim more infrastructure built ignores the real number that matters, how much was spent and on what from what you have available to spend. Here’s one area where percentages are relevant: Ramos averaged 3.2 percent of GDP on infrastructure; with Arroyo it’s significantly smaller, between two percent and 2.5 percent. Elsewhere in Asia, it’s five percent to six percent. Industry experts have also observed that the Philippines has the worst distribution of infrastructure in Asia; is lowest in terms of paved roads as percentage of total roads amongst the Asean 6; and while GMA developed some “international” airports, there’s very little, if any “international’ traffic to them. Also, the latest global travel and tourism report released by Institute for Management development showed the Philippines faring poorly in terms of air transport infrastructure (73rd among 133 countries), ground transport infrastructure (90th) and ICT Infrastructure (92nd).

In terms of employment, the published data claims 14.2 million jobs were created in Arroyo’s term, but the regular data we get from the National Statistics Office adds up to only 6.2 million. Where did the 8 million come from? Add to that the fact that unpaid family workers (mostly on farms), private household employees (domestic helpers and family drivers) and self-employed (sidewalk/market vendors), the fastest growing job sources, are included in the statistics.

The unemployment rate dropped significantly and artificially (from 11.2 percent in 2000 to 7.1 percent today) due to redefinition. They excluded students wanting to work but not able to and people looking for work but have given up from the labor force. If the old definition is maintained, there are close to 700,000 more Filipinos without a job today than in 2000. That excludes the overseas Filipino workers who have to go overseas to work because the domestic economy is too weak that it can’t generate jobs and provide decent incomes for its people.

I could go on, but you get the message. There’s hardly an honest number in the whole two pages. As Ben Diokno says, it’s a disgraceful waste of money. And a deliberate deception to the public that doesn’t have the access to the real data like we do.

To make this report complete, to those who’d be interested, we have produced a matrix in the same format as the government presentation but giving the true story, not the fairytale promulgated. It can be downloaded at www.dataphil.com

What this two-page advertisement has done is cause us to focus on what really were the accomplishments of President Arroyo in her extended 9-year term. When we do, we come to the conclusion that her administration has been a failure. There’s been almost no area where demonstrable, measurable improvement has occurred. In most instances, the situation has worsened when an impartial assessment is made. I wonder if she saw and vetted these ads, I sincerely hope not because they do her a great disservice. She’d do well to have them stopped immediately and nothing else issued without her imprimatur. As it is, the ads seen to be based on the premise first postulated by Benjamin Disraeli, an Englishman in the 19th century said, “There are lies, damned lies and, then statistics.”

We’re living in a society where by almost every measure we’re worse off than we were a decade ago. That’s an assessment based on published facts. It is not a judgmental assessment.

Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. Well, we’ve just removed the bikini. –Peter Wallace, Manila Standard Today

Comments to my columns can be sent to wbfplw@smartbro.net