THE VALUE OF STATISTICAL COMPETITIONnap.psa.gov.ph/ncs/12thncs/papers/INVITED/IPS-23 Public...
Transcript of THE VALUE OF STATISTICAL COMPETITIONnap.psa.gov.ph/ncs/12thncs/papers/INVITED/IPS-23 Public...
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12th National Convention on Statistics (NCS) EDSA Shangri-La Hotel, Mandaluyong City
October 1-2, 2013
THE VALUE OF STATISTICAL COMPETITION
by
Mahar Mangahas
For additional information, please contact: Author’s name : Mahar Mangahas Designation : President Affiliation : Social Weather Stations Address : 52 Malingap St., Sikatuna Village, Diliman, Quezon City Tel. no. : 924-4456/4458; 921-4465 E-mail : [email protected]; [email protected]
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“THE VALUE OF STATISTICAL COMPETITION”
by
Mahar Mangahas
ABSTRACT
Since its establishment in 1985, Social Weather Stations (www.sws.org.ph) has
actively pursued a mission of generating meaningful, timely, and reliable statistics about
the general wellbeing of the Filipino people, for public use, based on nationally
representative surveys of households and individuals. This mission naturally involves
areas of actual and/or potential competition in the research of SWS -- a private,
independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan and nonsectarian scientific institute – and some
governmental agencies.
The most basic area of competition is the meaning or scope of wellbeing. In
particular, the subject of economic deprivation (poverty and hunger, above all) is common
to government and SWS; however, the official statistics have been very weak in terms of
timeliness. SWS is filling this gap in public information by means of its quarterly surveys
of poverty (1992-present) and hunger (1998-present), that use self-reporting techniques
intensively. At times, the SWS figures are painful, but not always. In fact, there are no
real contradictions of SWS data with official data, considering the abundance of the
former and the scarcity of the latter.
In addition, SWS takes a holistic perspective that deliberately includes political
and social conditions, in line with seminal social indicators research in the Philippines.
For SWS, the state of democracy and the quality of governance are critical components
of the people’s quality of life, and worthy of statistical measurement. On these matters, it
so happens that the most recent SWS reports are very favorable. At all times, SWS
welcomes parallel research from both government and private institutions. Competition
in statistics on general wellbeing can be trusted to be beneficial to the Filipino people.
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Introduction. This paper uses the term “competition” as used in economics. Competition is the
joint participation of many, or at least a few, suppliers of a certain product or service (in this
case, statistical information), thus presenting users with alternative choices, not excluding the
simultaneous use of multiple suppliers. The value of competition is that it induces suppliers to
improve the quality, diversity and other features of what they supply. A monopolist, on the other
hand, is free of such pressure; a typical monopolist seeks ways to bar the entry of competitors.
Monopoly tends to result in limited quantities and qualities of what is supplied. Competition thus
has value for the users, or the general public, who in a democracy are the final judges of value.
Competition also has value for the suppliers, in the long run, since it assures survivors that their
place in the market has a social justification. It is win-win game for all who survive and keep on
supplying; the only losers are those who naturally fade away for lack of public patronage.
The background of Social Weather Stations. Among the survivors, this paper focuses on
Social Weather Stations in particular, since it is what I am most familiar with.1
The seed of today’s SWS was planted in 1974-75 at the Development Academy of the
Philippines (DAP), a government institution established in 1973 for twin purposes of training
government bureaucrats and doing research on development topics. One of its earliest
research projects was the Social Indicators Project (SIP), motivated by realization of the
limitations of orthodox indicators for depicting meaningful development. With its team of
university-based researchers, the project described national welfare thus:
The term “welfare” is used here in a very broad sense. It is interchangeable with
“well-being,” “happiness,” “quality of life,” “state of development,” and any other
term which is meant to refer to the degree of achievement of the important goals
of Philippine society as a whole. Mindful of these goals, and given the nation’s
limited research manpower and statistical resources, to what extent can the
degree of achievement be quantified and made amenable to statistical
monitoring over time?2
The SIP recognized that welfare has many dimensions. It identified health and nutrition,
learning, income and consumption, employment; non-human productive resources, housing,
utilities and the environment, public safety and justice, political values, and social mobility as
“social concerns,” and concluded that each concern should be measured not only in the
aggregate, but also with consideration for fairness of sharing among people of today and
adequacy of provision for people of the future. The multiple concerns, and the aspects of equity
and sustainability under each topic, constitute the many dimensions of welfare.
1 A detailed history of the early years is in pp. vii-xvii of Mangahas, 1994; also see Mangahas
and Guerrero, 2008.
2 Mangahas, 1976, p.1.
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The SIP already rejected Gross Domestic Product as a meaningful measure of well-being, and
instead recommended calculation of Net Beneficial Product. It estimated disability due to
illness, human capital created by schooling, the proportion of families below a food threshold3,
an index of housing adequacy, an air pollution index, an index of perceived public safety,
indices of political mobility and efficacy, and indices of occupational mobility and perceived
social mobility. It saw social surveying as a practical means of gathering primary data for new
indicators, and did a pilot social survey of 1,000 households in Batangas province to validate its
feasibility (Mangahas 1977).
In 1981, the DAP established a research department, called Research for Development (RfD),
and put on its agenda a project to actually produce new, survey-based social indicators. It was
named the Social Weather Stations (SWS) project, on the idea that surveys can serve like
observation posts to monitor social conditions, much as meteorological stations monitor weather
conditions. The project produced a number of survey reports for internal consumption of the
government, which seemed well-received, at least at some levels. However, its monograph,
Measuring the Quality of Life: A 1982 Social Weather Report (Mangahas, Miranda and Paqueo,
1983) was suddenly suppressed, without explanation, only two weeks before scheduled public
release in early 1983.
In Fig. 1 are some results of the suppressed Metro Manila survey, which asked people to
compare the current (i.e. 1981) state of the nation with the state prior to September 1972. The
survey had found mostly favorable opinions on church-state relations, political stability,
credibility of leadership, integrity of elections, and reduction of alien economic influence and
subversive activity. But it also found mostly unfavorable opinions on inflation, crime, corruption
and the burden of taxation. The discovery that the government could not tolerate even partially
unfavorable research findings was a great lesson. Realizing that its research would never be
approved by the authoritarian administration, the DAP disbanded RfD soon after.
3 There was no official measure of poverty, in the entire authoritarian period.
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Fig. 1. Suppressed 1981 Metro Manila survey which asked for a Fig. 1. Suppressed 1981 Metro Manila survey which asked for a
comparison of the current state of the nation with that prior tocomparison of the current state of the nation with that prior to
declaration of Martial Law in September 1972.declaration of Martial Law in September 1972.
BETTER NOW SAME WORSE NOWChurch/State
Relations
Political Stability
Credibility of Leaders
Clean Elections
Alien Economic
Influence
Subversive Activity
Taxes
Corruption
Crime
Inflation
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
79
59
56
50
49
48
45
32
31
14
12
23
25
19
23
20
16
19
18
11
9
18
18
31
28
31
39
49
50
75
1984-present: open statistical competition. In 1984 and 1985, the Bishops-Businessmen’s
Conference for Human Development, a civic organization of Catholic bishops, businessmen,
labor leaders and academics,4 conducted two nationwide socio-political surveys, with technical
support from social scientists who had also been with the DAP SWS Project. Among the key
findings of the two BBC surveys were that majorities of two-thirds disapproved of the
presidential powers to legislate by decree and to detain persons by executive fiat, regardless of
the courts (BBC, 1985).
Although the BBC surveys also had many quality-of-life (QOL) items, public interest focused
almost entirely on the findings on public opinion on matters of politics and governance. This
demonstrated the value of blending QOL monitoring with opinion polling in young democracies
(Møller, 1997; Guerrero and Mangahas, 2004).5
In 1985, Social Weather Stations -- taking its name from the DAP project, in which several of its
co-founders worked -- was formally registered as a private, non-stock, non-profit scientific
organization, for the general purpose of serving as an independent source of pertinent,
4 Aside from the bishops, other BBC members need not be Catholic. 5 The BBC’s ability to present these findings in public during the Marcos regime, before both
domestic and foreign media, was undoubtedly due to the immense political influence of Jaime
Cardinal Sin.
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accurate, timely and credible data on Philippine economic, social and political conditions. The
SWS mission is to measure, by means of statistical surveys, critical components of Philippine
development, and to bring these measurements to public attention, for use in democratic
discourse. “Generating and publicizing alternative statistics is an activity that helps to put its
subject matter higher on the agenda of public and private policymakers. SWS data on regular
topics like hunger, poverty and governance and on special topics such as corruption, the legal
profession, domestic violence, and disadvantaged groups are consciously meant as Statistics
for Advocacy, and not for mere academic study.” (Mangahas 2006)
The first SWS project was a series of four national political surveys jointly with the Ateneo de
Manila University, supported by the Ford Foundation (ADMU and SWS, 1986). These surveys,
and all succeeding ones by SWS, used the same methodology as the BBC surveys and thus
extended the time-series. The four SWS-Ateneo surveys were originally intended to lead up to
the then-scheduled local elections of 1986 and presidential election of 1987. However, in late
1985 Marcos suddenly decided to set a “snap” presidential election for February 1986 – even
making the false claim that the 1985 BBC survey predicted that he would win.6
The re-opening of democratic space in 1986 in the Philippines led to an early flowering of
opinion polling in the Philippines relative to its Southeast Asian neighbors. After the joint
project, the Ateneo opinion polls continued during 1987-1992, for as long as donor-funding
lasted, while the surveys of Social Weather Stations have continued to the present.7
Scientific standards. SWS aims for high standards in constructing survey questionnaires,
sampling, interviewing, data processing, analysis, reporting and archiving. All SWS datasets
are statistically representative of the populations studied. The standard national Social Weather
Surveys use face-to-face interviews of 1,200 voting-age adults divided into random samples of
300 each in the four broad geographical areas of Metro Manila, the Balance of Luzon, Visayas,
and Mindanao (sampling error margins of ±3% for national percentages and ±6% for area
percentages).
6 The snap election’s result was highly controversial, with the official count putting Marcos over
Corazon Aquino, but the parallel count of the National Movement for Free Elections, the official
citizen’s arm, putting Aquino over Marcos. After two weeks, the issue was settled by People
Power, that drove Marcos into exile. The first SWS-ADMU survey, done in May 1986, found
two-thirds of respondents nationwide saying that they had voted for Cory Aquino in the snap
election.
7 The SWS business model has made the Social Weather Reports financially sustainable
(Mangahas and Guerrero, 2002). An enterprising non-profit can attain sustainability by
exploiting the cost-effectivity of the omnibus approach in surveying and by actively engaging in
survey research contract work, especially where quality-of-life indicators play a role. Using
subjective indicators wherever possible also helps to lower costs, since they do not require
extensive questionnaires.
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Within each area, provinces, cities/towns, and barangays are selected with probabilities
proportional to size, to arrive at 240 primary sample spots. In each spot, five households are
selected by interval sampling. Then one respondent per household is randomly selected from
among qualified adults within the household by means of a probability selection table. This
methodology meets the standard of international barometers (Guerrero, 2004).
The raw data of all SWS surveys are available for public research, except for some temporary,
case-to-case, embargoes. The SWS Survey Data Bank of Philippine surveys (Fig. 2), as of
August 30, 2013, includes 477 datasets, of which 231 are national, and 246 are subnational,
containing 77,656 questionnaire items (i.e. excluding background variables), based on 637,450
interviews. Since 2004, the SWS field interviewing and data processing has been done entirely
in-house, encompassing 236 datasets of 42,802 questionnaire items, based on 361,221
interviews.8 As a member of the International Social Survey Programme (issp.org), SWS has
done all of the ISSP annual surveys over 1991-2012, for a total of 21 surveys with exact
counterparts in the ISSP member countries.
Surveying democracy. Public opinion polling for open disclosure is an important feature of
modern democracies. The BBC report (1985) laid its cards on the table: “While it aims to be
objective in describing the pulse of society, an openly-disseminated survey does not play a
neutral part in the social process. An open survey plays an active part in enhancing the
democratic quality of the social process. This is the intention of the BBC surveys of 1984 and
1985.”
The question of satisfaction with how democracy works is regularly taken up in SWS surveys,
as in several survey barometers abroad. Fig. 3 shows that the satisfaction peaked in the
presidential election years of 1992, 1998 and 2010, but not in that of 2004, under the much-
disliked administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Then it reached a new record high in the
mid-term election of 2013.
8 This excludes nine Philippine national rounds of the Gallup World Poll (GWP), whose fieldwork
and encoding has been outsourced by the Gallup Organization to SWS from 2006 to the
present. These are not archived by SWS since the GWP is proprietary to Gallup. The cross-
country reports of the GWP may be accessed from gallup.com.
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Fig. 2. SWS SURVEY DATA BANK
As of August 30, 2013
Sub- Qre
Data Sets National National Respondents Items**
Outsourced, 1984-2004 241 119 122 276,229 34,853
In-House,2004 21 15 6 25,274 1,9882005 9 5 4 8,400 1,0272006 19 8 11 17,030 2,0172007 23 12 11 20,713 2,2182008 21 11 10 21,062 3,6312009 29 12 17 36,050 3,5552010 34 20 14 92,038 5,2642011 20 7 13 49,044 5,0232012 35 11 24 62,225 15,1412013 25 11 14 29,385 2,938
Sub-total In-House
2004-2013 236 112 124 361,221 42,802
TOTAL 477 231 246 637,450 77,655
**Excludes standard background variables
First Quarter 2013 Social Weather ReportMarch 19-22, 2013 National Survey
1992 1998 2001 2004 2010 2013
20
40
60
% o
f ad
ult
s
C. AQUINO RAMOS ESTRADA ARROYO B. AQUINO
Q. On the whole, are you ... (VERY SATISFIED, FAIRLY SATISFIED, NOT VERY SATISFIED, NOT AT ALL SATISFIED) with the way democracy works in the Philippines?
Q. Which of the following statements comes closest to your own opinion? (SHOWCARD) [Democracy is always preferable to any other kind of government; Under some circumstances, an authoritarian government can be preferable to a democratic one; For people like me, it does not matter whether we have a democratic or a non-democratic regime]
59% say democratic
government is always
preferable
74% are satisfied with
how democracy works
21% say
authoritarian
government is
sometimes
preferable
Fig. 3. SATISFACTION WITH THE WAY DEMOCRACY WORKS AND
PREFERENCE FOR DEMOCRACY, NOV 1991 TO MAR 2013
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Surveying governance. At present, Filipinos are highly contented with national governance. In
the first place, satisfaction with President Benigno Aquino III has stayed high all through the first
half of his term (Fig. 4).
1986 1992 1998 2001 2004 2010 2013
+10
+30
+50
+70
-10
-30
-50
C. AQUINO RAMOS ESTRADA ARROYO B. AQUINO
Fig. 4. NET SATISFACTION RATINGS* OF PRESIDENTS,
PHILIPPINES, MAY 1986 TO JUN 2013
* Net ratings = % Satisfied minus % Dissatisfied correctly rounded.Survey Data: Social Weather Stations surveys.
+64
In the second place, the overall satisfaction with performance with the national administration is
very favorable (Mangahas, 2013d):
The satisfaction of Filipinos with the performance of their national government, from mid-2010
until the first quarter of 2013, is unprecedented ever since Social Weather Stations began
tracking it in 1989….
The last two quarterly surveys found hardly any change in the percentages satisfied (68 in
March 2013 and 70 in December 2012) or dissatisfied (15 in March and 13 in December). The
net satisfaction rates of +53 in March and +57 in December are both in the SWS range for Very
Good, which is from +50 to +69. (Excellent starts at +70.)
What is really remarkable, however, is that the administrations of Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada
and Gloria Arroyo not once got a Very Good net rating. Neither did that of Cory Aquino have
any Very Good in 1989-1992, when this particular SWS indicator was running, though it had
certainly been very popular earlier, most of all in 1986 and 1987. Note that this rating refers to
the performance of the national administration in general, not that of the president in particular.
In 1989-1992, the latter part of Cory Aquino’s time, the best net rating was a Moderate +23, out
of eight SWS survey rounds, The 24 SWS surveys in Ramos’ six years found two Good scores,
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of +33 and +31. The 10 surveys in Estrada’s abbreviated term found one Good score, of +36.
The best scores in the 35 SWS surveys in Arroyo’s nine years were two Moderate +27s. (SWS
uses Good for net scores of +30 to +49, and Moderate for net scores of +10 to +29.)
On the other hand, the eleven SWS surveys in PNoy’s term so far have gotten seven Very
Goods, topped by two +64s in 2010, and four Goods, the lowest being a +44 in May 2012.
Thus the worst score under PNoy is higher than the best score under any previous president,
since 1989.
Thirdly, the administration’s “report card” of satisfaction with performance on specific subjects is
also quite favorable (Fig. 5):
The first quarter of 2013 has a report card of 17 subjects. The latest grades are Very Good
(VG) in two subjects, Good (G) in seven subjects, Moderate (M) in four subjects, Neutral (N,
between +9 and –9) in three subjects, and Poor (P, from -10 to -29) in one subject.
The Very Good grades are in “helping the poor” (+56) and “promoting the welfare of overseas
Filipino workers” (+50).
“Helping the poor” is a core, or permanent, subject in the SWS report card. It has been VG
about half of the time under PNoy; otherwise it was G, with its lowest at +35 in May 2012. For
comparison, it went G only twice under Ramos, only once under Estrada, and never under
Arroyo.
The Good grades are in “foreign relations” (+47), “transparency in providing information about
government activities” (+38), “defending the country’s territorial rights” (+37), “promoting foreign
investments in our country” (+33), “fighting terrorism” (+33), “reconciliation with Muslim rebels”
(+31), and “providing jobs” (+30).
“Foreign relations,” another core subject, has been graded since Ramos’ time. It has never
gone below G under PNoy; previously it was usually M.
“Defending territorial rights” has been always G under PNoy. It was previously graded only in
Estrada’s time, as borderline G or high M.
“Foreign investments” has had four Gs under PNoy, after one M. It was previously graded in
Ramos’ time, getting many Ms and a few Ns, and in Arroyo’s time, getting one G, a few Ms, and
a few Ns.
“Reconciliation with Muslim rebels” is split between Gs and Ms in PNoy’s time. Estrada’s time
had all Ms, except for one N; Arroyo’s time had many Ns, several Ms, and one P.
The Moderate grades are in “reconciliation with communist rebels” (+28), “eradicating graft and
corruption in government” (+19), “fighting crimes that victimize ordinary citizens, like killings, holdups,
robberies, physical violence, etc.” (+17) and “resolving the armed conflict in Sabah between Malaysia
and the armed family and supporters of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III” (+13).
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“Eradicating graft and corruption,” a core indicator, has been at M, but had one G, in PNoy’s time.
Previously it was mostly P or VP (Very Poor, from -30 to -49). The great exception was a VG in
1987; but it slipped quickly to M, and was negative thereafter.
“Fighting crime,” a core indicator, has been at M or else G in PNoy’s time. Since Cory Aquino’s time
up to mid-2010 it was mostly at N, often at P, and rarely at M.
The Neutral grades are in “ensuring that no family will be hungry and have nothing to eat” (+7),
“fighting inflation” (+4), and “ensuring that oil firms don’t take advantage of oil prices” (+4).
“Fighting hunger” has been a core indicator since 2004, when it was in Bad territory (-30 to -49).
It never got above P up to mid-2010. In PNoy’s term it has always been positive, at either M or
N.
“Fighting inflation,” another core indicator, was negative from 1991 up to mid-2010, going as low
as Very Bad (-50 to -69). In PNoy’s term it has been at M or N, and only once went negative.
The sole Poor grade is in “resolving the Maguindanao massacre case with justice” (-26).
Overall performance rating +44 +62 +57 +53
Helping the poor +35 +59 +50 +56
Promoting welfare of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) +39 +54 +49 +50
Foreign relations +33 +51 +49 +47
Transparency in providing info about gov't activities +44 +39 +38
Defending the country's territorial rights +35 +50 +48 +37
Promoting foreign investments in our country +42 +35 +33
Fighting terrorism +19 +43 +30 +33
Reconciliation with Muslim rebels +14 +33 +32 +31
Providing jobs +43 +24 +30
Reconciliation with Communist rebels +9 +31 +28 +28
Eradicating graft and corruption +12 +40 +20 +19
Fighting crimes +16 +42 +26 +17
Resolving the armed conflict in Sabah +13
Ensuring that no family will be hungry +1 +26 +5 +7
Fighting inflation -6 +19 +1 +4
Ensuring that oil firms don’t take advantage of oil prices -12 +13 -5 +4
Resolving the Maguindanao massacre case with justice -16 -4 -28 -26
* Net figures (% Satisfied minus % Dissatisfied) correctly rounded.
May12 Aug12 Dec12 Mar13
Fig. 5. NET* SATISFACTION WITH THE NATIONAL
ADMINISTRATION ON SPECIFIC ISSUES, MAY 2012 – MAR 2013
Mode-rate (4)
Neutral (3)
Good (7)
Poor (1)
Very Good (2)
SWS surveys of economic deprivation. Since SWS aims to produce statistics that are
socially meaningful, its agenda regularly includes critical concerns such as poverty and hunger
(Figs. 6 and 7). The rise in families suffering from involuntary hunger, from 2003 up to the
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present, demonstrates, more than ever, how misleading are per capita GDP or Gross National
Product or Gross National Income as indicators of economic well-being (Mangahas, 2012).
Furthermore, SWS believes that its indicators of the economic QOL should match the periodicity
of the main competition in economic indicators, i.e. the orthodox economic growth indicators
based on the National Income Accounts (NIA). In 1986-91 the Social Weather Surveys were
semestral; from 1992 to the present they have been quarterly, or as frequent as the Philippine
NIA.9 To our knowledge, the Social Weather Surveys provide the world’s fastest system of
estimating poverty and hunger based on representative national surveys (Mangahas 1995,
2004, and 2008).
1983 1986 1992 1998 2001 2004 2010 2013
10
30
50
70
Fig. 6. SELF-RATED POVERTY: FAMILIES WHO ARE “MAHIRAP”,
PHILIPPINES, APR 1983 TO JUN 2013
Self-Rated Poverty Question: Where would you place your family in this card? (Not poor, On the line, Poor)
*Note: The NSCB figures, which compare income of the year to the official poverty line, are plotted in June of the year.
MARCOS C. AQUINO RAMOS ESTRADA ARROYO B. AQUINO
% o
f fa
milie
s
49%
NSCB “Unrefined” Poverty*
NSCB “Refined” Poverty, 2012
22%
Self-Rated Poverty
9 See my Inquirer columns, “Syncing poverty and growth statistics,” 6/6 2013, and “Was the
GDP growth inclusive?” 9/7/2013.
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1998 2001 2004 2010 2013
5
10
15
20
Note: Don’t Know and Refused responses are not shown. Q: Nitong nakaraang 3 buwan, nangyari po ba kahit minsan na ang inyong pamilya ay nakaranas ng gutom at wala kayong makain? KUNG OO: Nangyari po ba ‘yan ng MINSAN LAMANG, MGA ILANG BESES, MADALAS, o PALAGI?
Fig. 7. DEGREE OF HUNGER IN HOUSEHOLDS,
PHILIPPINES: JUL 1998 TO JUN 2013
22.7%
17.3%
ESTRADA ARROYO AQUINO
5.4%
% o
f h
ou
se
ho
lds
Total Hunger(Ave. 1998-2013 = 14.7%)
Severe(Ave. 1998-2013 = 3.5%)
Moderate(Ave. 1998-2013 = 11.2%)
Surveying “joblessness.” The SWS concept of “joblessness” is tracked in Fig. 8, and
compared with the official concept of unemployment (Mangahas 2013a):
SWS classifies persons as having a job if they affirm that they have “trabaho sa kasalukuyan.”
The time frame for having a job is the time of interview. The jobless are those who say they
have no job, and are presently looking for a job. Those with no job, but not looking for one, are
outside the labor force. The jobless-rate is taken as a proportion of the labor force (those with a
job + the jobless).
The official Labor Force Survey (LFS), on the other hand, considers as employed those who
worked for at least one hour during the past week. The time frame for being officially employed
is the week prior to interview. The officially unemployed are those who (a) were virtually idle in
the past week, and (b) were looking for work when interviewed. Since April 2005, there has
been a third official criterion for unemployment: (c) being available for work should an opening
come about within two weeks. (The SWS measure of joblessness has never changed. If
immediate availability for a job is also considered, the SWS joblessness rate for December 2012
becomes 16.5 percent.)
The idleness-criterion tends to make official unemployment unrealistically low. Fortunately, the
LFS also counts the underemployed, i.e. those looking for work even though not idle in the past
week. Such persons, unhappy with whatever work they recently had, would probably call
themselves jobless if interviewed by SWS.
Page 14 of 20
1993 1998 2001 2004 2010 2013
10
20
30
* % without a job at present and looking for a job.
Source: Social Weather Surveys and NSO.
Fig. 8. SWS JOBLESSNESS RATE* AND NSO UNEMPLOYMENT
RATE, PHILIPPINES, SEP 1993 – MAR 2013
RAMOS ESTRADA ARROYO B. AQUINO
% o
f ad
ult
s i
n lab
or
forc
e
NSO: 15 yrs+ (new definition)
25.4%
7.1% (as of Jan 2013)
NSO: 15 yrs+
SWS: 18 yrs+
Surveying undeserved dissatisfaction with life. By surveying “satisfaction with life,” SWS
has at the same time obtained data on “dissatisfaction with life” (Fig. 9). Such dissatisfaction
with life is significantly greater among the poor than among the non-poor (Fig. 10) – the
difference can be called “undeserved suffering” on the ground that no one deserves to be poor
(Mangahas and Guerrero, 2012)
Page 15 of 20
Fig. 9. ADULTS DISSATISFIED WITH LIFE,
PHILIPPINES, 2002-2012
* '02 * '03 * '04 * '05 * '06 * '07 * '08 * '09 * '10 * '11 * *0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
14.3%
39.4%
4.0%
11.8%
Not Very/Not At All SatisfiedMedian 30.8%
Not At All Satisfied
Median 6.8%
Fig. 10. ADULTS DISSATISFIED WITH LIFE, BY SELF-
RATED POVERTY (SRP), PHILIPPINES, 2002-2012
* '02 * '03 * '04 * '05 * '06 * '07 * '08 * '09 * '10 * '11 * *0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
SRPMedian Diss.
37.6%
NOTSRP Median Diss.
23.0%
Election surveys. The very high success rate of SWS in predicting elections (Fig. 11) has
undoubtedly been an important factor in establishing the credibility of its surveys; it is the global
Page 16 of 20
litmus test for the quality of survey research.10 Election surveys hardly affect the decisions of
voters (Fig. 12). The great majority of Filipinos say such surveys are good for the country (Fig.
13; see SWS, 2013).
Fig. 11. RANKS OF SENATORS: SWS MAY 2013 FINAL PRE-
ELECTION SURVEY VS. FINAL OFFICIAL COMELEC TALLY:
PHILIPPINES, MAY 2013
Fin
al O
ffic
ial
CO
ME
LE
C T
ally
May 3-4, 2013 Final Pre-Election Survey
Spearman rank-order correlation
r = 0.970
10 SWS does surveys in every national election, and is quite successful in predicting the results
(Mangahas, 1998 and 2013b; Guerrero and Mangahas, 2004). SWS also established its
institutional credentials by representing the Philippines in prestigious cross-country survey
networks such as the International Social Survey Program, the World Values Survey, the
Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, and Asian Barometer, and by joining professional
associations like the World Association for Public Opinion Research and the International
Society for Quality of Life Studies.
Page 17 of 20
63.9%
24.8%
3.6%
2.7%
4.9%
Q. May nabalitaan ba kayo, maging sa pahayagan, radyo o telebisyon, ng kahit anong survey na nagpapahiwatig kung sinu-sinung kandidatong pang-Senador ang malamang mananalo? KUNG OO: Sa inyong palagay, mangyayari po kaya sa inyo ang mga sumusunod sa darating na halalan ng Mayo 2007? 1) Magpalit ng boto sa isang kandidatong malakas sa survey mula sa isang mahina sa survey (OO, HINDI). 2) Magpalit ng boto sa isang kandidatong mahina sa survey mula sa isang malakas sa survey (OO, HINDI).
Unaware of
election survey
news
Aware, but no effect
Bandwagon effect
only
Partly bandwagon,
partly underdog
Fig. 12. EFFECT OF ELECTION SURVEYS ON VOTERS:
SWS MAY 2-3, 2013 SURVEY
Underdog effect
only
74.4%
23.2%
2.4%
Q44. Sa pangkalahatan, masasabi ba ninyo na ang mga surveys na nagtatanong kung sino ang malamang na iboboto ng mga tao sa darating na halalan sa Mayo 2013, ay isang MABUTING bagay o isang MASAMANG bagay para sa ating bansa, o hindi ninyo alam? (MABUTI; MASAMA; HINDI ALAM)
Fig. 13. OPINION ON ELECTION SURVEYS:
SWS MAY 2-3, 2013 SURVEY
Question: In general, would you say that surveys that ask whom the people will most probably vote for in the coming May 2013 elections, are a GOOD thing or a BAD thing in our country, or don't you know?
Good
Don’t know
Bad
Statistics for enlightenment. The SWS approach involves a deliberate switch from the
technocratic model to the enlightenment model, as in many other parts of the world (Land
Page 18 of 20
1996). The technocratic model saw the production of relevant data as the main problem
delaying the discovery of solutions to social problems. The enlightenment model, on the other
hand, sees the first task as putting social issues on the political agenda by supplying data for
public debate through the mass media. This, according to Vogel (1997, p. 104) is actually “the
original purpose of social indicators: to send signals to governments, business, other
organizations and the general public.”
Hence the SWS mission statement is phrased in a definite order: data should be generated,
firstly, to stimulate the eye; secondly, to influence the heart; and finally to guide the mind. The
SWS media releases are now being issued to the general public on a near-weekly basis through
the mass media, and are heavily cited not only by journalists but also by many social and
political analysts from academe, government, the business sector, civil society organizations,
and other institutions.
Interestingly enough, most criticisms of the Social Weather Reports come from government
officials, whose seeming function is to do the opposite: to send non-signals to the general
public, and to put sensitive topics away from public debate as much as possible. Many officials
argue, for instance, that SWS survey-based measures are “merely perceptions” and hence
supposedly different from reality. Official statistical agencies often insist that national sample
sizes must be in the tens of thousands, which are affordable only once every few years, rather
than the gold standard of one thousand respondents, practiced in the international barometers.
Conclusion. SWS believes that the path towards effective social indicators is as much
institutional as it is technical. It has demonstrated that the non-governmental research sector
has a strong capability for monitoring national well-being. We recommend that private research
institutes be pro-active in the generation of social statistics for public use (Guerrero and
Mangahas, 1989).
We believe in letting a thousand flowers of statistics bloom. They should bloom not only at the
national level but also at the local level, tended not only by national government agencies and
private institutes but also by local government units and local universities and colleges
(Mangahas, 2013e). Geographic specificity cannot be a specialty of national organizations.
In the story about the creation of the world in Genesis is the line “Let there be light,” which in
Latin is Fiat Lux. It may have inspired the Latin slogan of the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, Fiat Panis, meaning: “Let there be bread.” For the Annual Convention on
Statistics each October, I suggest the slogan:
Fiat Numerus -- “Let there be statistics.”
Page 19 of 20
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