NATIONAL DATA DISSEMINATION FORUM 2010 ASPBI/SICT

KEYNOTE SPEECH

by Dr. Arsenio M. Balisacan

Secretary of Socioeconomic Planning

and Director-General, NEDA

NATIONAL DATA DISSEMINATION FORUM

2010 ASPBI/SICT

October 4, 2012

Hotel Intercontinental, Makati City

National Statistics Office (NSO) Administrator Carmelita Ericta, former NEDA Director-General Vicente V. Valdepeñas Jr., UP School of Statistics Dean Erniel B. Barrios, colleagues in the government, friends from the private sector, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.

I would like to thank the NSO for inviting me to deliver this keynote speech for today’s National Data Dissemination Forum. Even long before I was appointed by President Benigno Aquino III to be the Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and Director-General of NEDA, of which the NSO is an attached agency, I already had a working and very healthy relationship with many of the people from statistical agencies, particularly NSO because I am an empiricist and most of my research data come from NSO. I am a heavy user of statistics generated and compiled by the NSO for my work and policy studies that look at various development issues, particularly welfare policies, poverty and development.

I should also note that the President has been emphasizing the need for evidence-based policy formulation, evidence-based monitoring, and I have received a marching order from no less than our President to work closely with statistical agencies. For him and for us in government, we put critical importance on data. That is why barely a week after I was appointed, the first government agency that I had to run to, of course apart from NEDA, was NSO, and I met with Administrator Ericta and her officials to lay out the marching orders in getting more timely and relevant statistical system for the service of nation building.

Today we were provided with the preliminary results of the 2010 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry (ASPBI) and the 2010 Survey of Information and Communication Technology (SICT).  I am aware that the ASPBI and the SICT are but two of the numerous activities undertaken by the NSO. The survey operations were conducted in 2011 and I am glad that some results are already being disseminated this year, 2012. However, I am still challenging the NSO to come out with the survey results earlier. My dream is to see that when a survey is completed, the results are out in two months or three months. I think with SICT, maybe we can get a lot of assistance from the ICT people of the business sector and the private sector to make that possible. No, I don’t think that is an unrealistic dream. In India, when they have national elections, the results are out immediately after elections, because they now use the power of ICT in their system. We hope that the government will be able to capacitate and provide more support to NSO, so that when when enumerators will go to the field to collect data, the results will already be out in the central office immediately after their interviews. That would be fantastic.

Executive Order 352 identifies the ASPBI as one of several statistical activities critical for decision making in the government. For instance, from the survey results presented by Ms. Regala, we have learned that the Philippines had a total number of 23,612 establishments with total employment of 20 and over in 2010. By broad industry group, 72 percent were engaged in the services sector, 25 percent in the industry sector, and the remaining 3 percent in the agriculture sector. The shares have remained the same when compared with the 2008 and 2009 ASPBI rounds. This tells me that there are not many medium- and large-scale establishments in the country. If you look in the longer series, what you find is a missing middle—huge micro enterprises on the one end, and very large ones on another end. A big puzzle for me is why not many of these micro and small establishments are not able to later graduate to become medium- and large-scale establishments.  

In terms of the geographic concentration of the large establishments, 47 percent are located in Metro Manila. Twenty-eight (28) percent are in the rest of Luzon, 14 percent are in Visayas regions, and 11 percent are in Mindanao. We know from the literature that economies of scale in production can be attained by the large establishments. One suspects that the agglomeration economies also work so well in the country that it encourages the concentration of production in Metro Manila. Perhaps this is the reason why the National Capital Region (NCR) contributed 36 percent to total output. On the other hand, the rest of Luzon contributed 37.5 percent to output and Mindanao, another 14 percent, which is much higher than suggested by the geographic profile in these regions.  A more careful study of this data will be useful in our quest for strategies to propel the economy to a higher growth path.

Ms. Regala also mentioned that employment generated by the large establishments numbered about three million workers. This is less than 8 percent of the total number of employed persons. This information is important to us as program planners, as we aim for inclusive growth. Large establishments are, most probably, covered by regulations with respect to working conditions and other standards, including the provision of benefits to workers. The ASPBI results inform us that a lot more workers are outside the reach of regulation, and should be the subject of other social protection schemes.

The past survey rounds showed no significant change in the distribution of employees by broad industry group. Again, considering that the previous survey rounds coincided with global crises, this information implies that the medium and large establishments did not restructure or perhaps were unable to restructure. I would be curious to find out the reason behind this demonstrated resilience and if the adverse impact of the crisis actually manifested in other respects, say on productivity and profitability. In the short term, we expect more external shocks originating from the Euro area crisis, US fiscal crises and the slowdown in China. We need this careful analysis in order to develop strategies to weather these probable shocks.

Aside from the ASPBI, the NSO also conducted the SICT as a rider.  Although not yet designated as a critical set of statistics, SICT results are important for us to keep abreast with the fast changing technology.

Regional Director Lou Homecillo gave us informative and useful ICT indicators. If the Philippines wants to improve its rank in the Global Competitiveness Index, we need to have good and timely data on ICT. At the same time, NSO will need to coordinate with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), Export Development Council (EDC) and various industry associations and do some more development work to cater to the specific demands for data on BPOs and to address the data gaps on trade in services.

I was informed that the overall response rate at the national level for the ASPBI is 95 percent and for SICT, 92 percent. That’s a very high response rate. In my previous reincarnation as a researcher, I would be happy if I could get 30 percent. I will say this is “Very Good” considering the number of pages of the questionnaires that the respondents needto fill up and the number of financial records that had to be referred to before actually accomplishing the forms. I am a very heavy user of data of the Family Income and Expenditure Survey, of the Labor Force Survey, but I wonder if I can last a day being asked these questions as a respondent. These we owe to the support and cooperation of the 30,000 survey respondents, which you represent here in this forum. I am glad that some of you will be given a plaque of recognition in the awarding ceremony later. Unfortunately, it is not possible to give all the survey respondents a plaque of recognition, but all of you deserve such recognition.

I would also like to commend the dedication and diligence of the NSO Field Staff represented by the Regional Directors and some Provincial Statistics Officers present here today in distributing and retrieving the survey questionnaires on or before the set deadline. Innovations implemented by the NSO in data collection and in processing the data for an earlier release of survey results are also very much appreciated.

Maraming salamat at mabuhay tayong lahat.

M.R. No. 2012-068

04 October 2012