NSCB - Statistically Speaking... THE ASEAN - WHERE DO WE STAND? OR WOBBLE? by Dr. Romulo A. Virola

THE ASEAN - WHERE DO WE STAND? OR WOBBLE?
by Dr. Romulo A. Virola ¹
Secretary General, NSCB

In the sixties, the vibrant Philippine economy ranked second only to Japan in our region. After twenty years of Marcos rule and almost twenty years after the EDSA People Power revolution, we lag behind everybody in the original ASEAN except possibly Indonesia, while the Plus Five have started to catch up with us! Unless we now unite as a nation, we will wake up from the nightmares of the last quarter of the century singing in videoke bars as the ASEAN Minus One!

Available data from different sources including the United Nations, ADB, World Bank, IMF, International Telecommunications Union, the ASEAN Secretariat and the ASEAN governments show how wobbly we are! The methodologies used in compiling these data are however, usually different from those used for official statistics because international bodies are obsessed with international comparability. So, subject to the usual limitations on data quality of these important statistical indicators, it is time we listened to/recognized/accepted our present and saw what is in store for us in the future.

Right now, we are somewhere in the middle among the 10 ASEAN countries for most indicators. Meaning that, from the glorious past handed to us by our forebears – Lapu-lapu, Panday Pira, Rajah Sulayman, Gabriela Silang, Tandang Sora, Andres Bonifacio, Gregorio del Pilar, Dr. Jose Rizal, Apolinario Mabini and many others, we are now about kulelat among the original ASEAN members ( Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines) but still generally ahead of the Plus Five (Myanmar, Brunei, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Vietnam). Let us sob at our sad story:

Our GDP growth was 4th lowest in 2003;
And because our population growth remains robust, our GDP per capita growth was 2nd lowest in 2003;
Foreign Direct Investments inflows to the Philippines was 5th highest in 2003;
We had the 2nd highest growth of Merchandise Exports in 2002 but dropped significantly to 7th in 2003;
We had the lowest employment rate (highest unemployment rate) among 7 countries in 2001 (no data on Brunei, Lao PDR and Myanmar);
Out of 100 pesos we generated thru exports, 17 pesos went to payment of our debt, the highest ratio in 2003 among 6 countries ( no data for Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar and Brunei) and significantly higher than everybody except Thailand;
Our fiscal balance, would you believe, was 4th best in 2002 and 5th best in 2003? Actually, all countries except for Myanmar (no data) were in fiscal imbalance in 2002, but Brunei, Singapore and Thailand got out of the red in 2003;
Less than 2 million tourists visited us in 2003 and they found us only the 6th most attractive destination behind Malaysia (10.6 million), Thailand (10.1 million), Singapore (6.1 million), Indonesia (4.4 million) and Vietnam (2.4 million);
Food production per capita was 5th lowest in 2002;
We were 5th highest in the Human Development Index for 2002; and
We were behind only Singapore and Thailand in the Human Poverty Index – that makes us better off compared to many of our brothers and sisters in the region and we are not talking about the Happiness Index!

Now, let us look at our future, which depends highly on our education, health and appreciation for science and technology.

We thought we were highly literate at 99% in 2003, but Singapore, Brunei and Thailand could read even better;
In 1996, we had higher shares of government expenditures for education, compared to Indonesia, Lao PDR and Malaysia but lower than Thailand and Singapore;
Only 79 out of 100 of our children who went to school reached grade 5, beating only Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar;
In 2002, 28 out of 1000 Filipino children born alive did not survive beyond 1 year of age, a 5th highest infant mortality rate;
In 2000, out of 100,000 Filipino mothers who delivered live babies, 200 died, making our maternal mortality rate the 5th highest and about 5 times those for Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Thailand;
We do not have as much access to essential drugs as our neighbors from Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia but we are better off than Cambodia and Myanmar;
The AIDS/HIV did not hit us as badly as Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore;
The number of personal computers in the Philippines was less than 3 per 100 population, 5th highest in 2002 but way below the 62 for Singapore, 15 for Malaysia and 8 for Brunei;
Less than 5 of 100 Filipinos were internet users in 2002, 4th highest in 2002 ( no data for Brunei ) but much less than the 50 Singaporeans, 32 Malaysians and 8 Thais; and
We might be the text capital of the world, but among 9 countries excluding Brunei, we were only 4th highest in cellular mobile telephone subscribers per 100 population in 2002.

So, what do all these statistics tell us? We are in bad shape and we will be worse off, hit by the ravages of global competition, if we do not wake up! The statistics on our preparedness for fierce competition command us to stop dreaming somewhere over the rainbow! More nightmares are threatening, so let us stop bickering! Let us love our country a little bit more and ourselves a little bit less. We all must realize that the future of our country is our individual and collective responsibility. I wish we would stop blaming the government all the time for our woes! Surely, we had missed good governance in our vocabulary and we are paying heavily for it, but there is hope and we must hope. We need to be constructive though, rather than destructive, as many of us have been wont to. Maybe we, including those who decided to go for greener pastures elsewhere, should ask ourselves – what have we really contributed to help put our nation in better shape? Having heard the answer, and having heard our congressmen talk about giving up their pork and never mind the line item budgeting, let us now try to do something. Something better than criticizing everybody else but ourselves!

And six years from now, we will find out if we could walk straight or if our feet continued to wobble and our minds had started to boggle.

Reactions and views are welcome thru email to the author at ra.virola@nscb.gov.ph.

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¹ Secretary General of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) and Chairman of the Statistical Research and Training Center (SRTC). He holds a Ph. D. in Statistics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, USA and has taught mathematics and statistics at the University of the Philippines. He is also a past president of the Philippine Statistical Association.

Posted 13 September 2004.


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