THE Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), in accordance with Republic Act 10625 or the Philippine Statistical Act of 2013, is mandated to make the Philippine Statistical System (PSS) responsive to the requirements of development planning and policy formulation in the country.
This mandate is catapulting the PSA and, consequently, the PSS into the age of the Internet not only by migrating its assets to the worldwide web but also in producing statistical information for millions of Filipinos.
A proof of this is the Philippine Statistical Development Program (PSDP) 2018-2023, which aims to strengthen the PSS through the use of administrative data and the exploration of “Big Data,” or large data sets.
According to a research by McKinsey & Co., analyzing big data “will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation and consumer surplus.”
“[In the next five years, the PSDP aims to] strengthen data ecosystems through local and national statistical capacity development toward enhancement of administrative data and exploration of big data and citizen-generated data as possible sources of official statistics,” the PSDP stated.
In response, the PSDP has included efforts to improve its statistical capacity development in order to respond to prevailing and emerging challenges, such as the SDGs, Big Data, citizen-generated data and even Association of Southeast Asian Nations integration.
This means providing training for its staff on the use of open-source statistical software for statistical computing and graphics. Other training programs will also be introduced to train personnel involved in statistical computing to derive indicators from big data, citizen-generated data and high-volume data.
Big data, the PSDP stated, will also be used to support the implementation, monitoring and review of the United Nations’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which presents a daunting data challenge not only for the PSA but for other National Statistics Offices worldwide.
These efforts will help address 162 of the 232 data requirements for the SDGs and 394 of the 503 data needed to ensure the country meets its Philippine Development Plan (PDP) targets.
Challenges
THE PSDP contains 900 statistical development programs.
Over a third, or 30.3 percent, will be used for population and housing statistics, while some 20 percent will be used for agriculture and agrarian-reform statistics. About 14.5 percent of the programs will focus on data for environment and natural resource statistics, 11.7 percent for other data and 10.4 percent for industry, trade and investment statistics.
The majority of the data, or 63.7 percent, or 596 statistical development programs, are considered high priority while 20.1 percent, or 188 statistical development programs, have no prioritization.
Around 14.6 percent, or 137 statistical development programs, have a medium priority while 1.6 percent, or 15 statistical development programs, have low priority.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia has said that the PSDP will also address data requirements internationally, such as the “Core Regional Indicators,” Big Data, the SDGs and various statistical commitments. These commitments include the Cape Town Global Action Plan for Sustainable Development Data and the Asian and Pacific Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Decade.
Pernia said the biggest challenge for the government is satisfying the data requirements to monitor the PDP. This has mandated the PSA to release an annual report in keeping with the results matrixes of the PDP.
With this, Pernia and Bersales said that the PSDP’s release is accompanied by a draft executive order that will mandate all agencies to implement the plans and programs in the PSDP.
“With the challenges faced by the Philippine Statistical System brought about by rapid change in technology, emerging demands for various indicators, compliance to the country’s international commitments and the dynamics in the international statistics community, it is crucial that each sector understands its roles in the production, dissemination and use of statistics,” Pernia said.
SDGs
NIEVA T. Natural of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) has said that when it comes to the SDGs, only 103 indicators can be monitored since these will be drawn from regularly conducted surveys.
The PSA also said the remaining data needs will be sourced from PSA surveys, censuses and administrative data and 1 percent will be sourced from the data from International Agencies.
The UN Statistics Division (UNSD) has set a Tier classification for global SDG indicators. The 103 indicators for the Philippines are considered Tier 1 indicators, which are conceptually clear and have internationally established methodology and standards.
These data, the UN said, are also regularly produced by countries for at least 50 percent of countries and of the population in every region where the indicator is relevant.
However, Natural said around 130 more indicators are considered Tier 2 and Tier 3 for the Philippines. Monitoring these indicators can be difficult since not all the data are produced regularly, if they are available at all.
Gaps
THERE are 59 indicators that are considered Tier 2 for the Philippines. These can be monitored using existing data but the frequency of the data collection is not regular.
Natural, who is Neda’s Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment staff director, said the Philippines classifies 71 indicators as Tier 3. These indicators, according to the UNSD, have “no internationally established methodology or standards are yet available for the indicator, but methodology or standards are being [or will be] developed or tested.”
Natural said among the most important SDG indicators that need to be prioritized are the environment and natural resources (ENR) statistics.
She said four goals in the 17 SDGs are related to the environment and natural resources. Most of the indicators in these goals are not generated by the Philippine Statistical System (PSS).
Based on the preliminary baseline data submitted by the Philippines, data gaps exist in Goal 12 on ensuring sustainable consumption and production patters, particularly the indicator on hazardous waste generated per capita and proportion of hazardous waste treated.
Data gaps also exist in Goal 15, particularly on the progress toward sustainable forest management, the Forest Cover Change (from close to open forest) and the Red List Index. Data gaps in Goal 15 also include, in particular, the proportion of traded wildlife that was poached or illicitly trafficked and progress toward national targets established in accordance with the Aichi Biodiversity Target 2 of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, among others.
Opportunities
BIG data is characterized by the 3Vs: volume, velocity and variety. It is now creating business opportunities in rich countries and it will only take a matter of time before countries like the Philippines will be able to catch up.
Philippine Institute for Development Studies Senior Fellow Jose Ramon G. Albert said big data sources include social-media data like videos, documents, blogs, forums and social-media streams.
Albert also said big data can also be mined from radio feeds, news media content, online searches, postal data, and GPS data and other digital sensors such as smart meters in homes to record electricity consumption or satellite imagery.
As early as 2014, Albert said, private-sector players such as Amazon, Visa and Mastercard are able to watch people’s shopping preferences; Google, browsing habits; Twitter, what’s on people’s minds; Facebook, all kinds of information including the status of personal relationships; and mobile providers are able to listen in on people’s conversations.
Albert earlier said that since big data comes in big volumes and produced at high “velocity” through databases is still wrought with privacy issues.
Nonetheless, he said this does not mean that PSS should not use big data. He said the PSS could be more forward-looking and open to using big data.
Albert said to use big data, efforts must be exerted to “identify legal protocols” and make “institutional arrangements” that will allow the PSS to use big data. He added that privacy issues of big data should also be addressed to prevent its misuse.
The potential for big data is enormous. Albert said “the world’s capacity to collect data is reported to double every 40 months since the 1980s.”
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