New stat plan to push for more statistics

MANILA, Philippines – Do you know how much land area the Philippines covers or where the 3.5 million coconut farmer-beneficiaries of the coco levy funds are located?

Chances are, your guess is as good as the government’s.

The government has struggled completing a database of key statistics about the Philippines due to lack of funds.

In the simple case of the country’s land area, getting totals is next to impossible since a nationwide cadastral survey has yet to be completed. Cadastral survey defines the dimensions, location and ownership of land parcels described in legal documentation and basis for taxation.

“The completion of a Cadastral survey, for many of us who do not know… has taken quite a long time to complete. I think [the process has taken] more than a decade already because it is a huge undertaking… When a cadastral survey gets completed, we would be able to finally say what the correct land area of the Philippines is,” statistician John de Guia stressed during the October 15 launch of the government’s statistical roadmap.

The major reason for the lack of data about the country is the declining share of government investment in statistics. Former National Statistical Coordination Board Secretary General Romulo Virola said the government’s statistics budget as a percentage of gross domestic product has declined to 0.020% under President Benigno Aquino III, from 0.039% during the time of his mother, the late former President Corazon Aquino.

Improving statistics

The government’s statistical roadmap — the Philippine Statistical Development Program (PSDP) 2011 to 2017 — intends to provide the statistical information needed by the public once it is officially rolled out.

The PSDP is the country’s medium-term statistical blueprint and crafted by the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

Aside from cadastral surveys, other key statistical information the PSDP can provide include a better census of agriculture and fisheries and integration of sampling frames of agricultural surveys.

This will help determine the number of farmers in the country, including where the coconut farmers are. De Guia said this undertaking will also incorporate changes in agriculture data generation implemented in recent years.

“Most of us, if not all of us, believe that statistics is important to help us in instituting reforms and in developing plans, policies, and programs. But producing statistics is not easy. Collecting, processing, and disseminating statistics need rational planning to optimize available resources, which I understand have not been quite adequate,” National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Director General Arsenio Balisacan said his speech read by Deputy Director General Margarita Songco in the same October 15 event.

The list of data gathered via the PSDP will include:

• Transport safety, updated inventory of roads and bridges, motor vehicle traffic;
• Informal sector/employment statistics;
• Statistics on MSMEs, microfinance, microinsurance, adoption of the GFS manual;
• Institutionalized ICT surveys on e-commerce, m-commerce, e-business, IT/IT-enabled services; and
• R&D and innovation accounts, among others.

-Cai Ordinario, Rappler.com