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Friday, March 29, 2024

Nowhere near the finish line?

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LESS than a year before President Duterte steps down from Malacañang Palace, data obtained from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) indicate that his administration may be distant from the finish line in achieving its Philippine Development Plan (PDP) targets. And the pandemic may not be the only reason for the performance.

Based on 2020 Statistical Indicators on Philippine Development (StatDev 2020), PSA data, however, showed that only the administration’s targets on the Environment, Competitiveness, and Industry and Services are considered to have a high likelihood of being achieved.

In terms of overall performance, only 53 percent of the 300 indicators of the StatDev have either high or medium likelihood ranking of being achieved by 2022.

“Medium Likelihood indicates the performance is on average pace of reaching the end of plan target. Since the start of the PDP 2017-2022, annual StatDev overall pace of progress is medium, hence, we cannot conclusively say that the current performance is mainly due to the pandemic,” Assistant National Statistician Wilma A. Guillen told the BusinessMirror.

‘No comparison’

GUILLEN, however, said the results are not intended to compare administrations with previous ones, saying that the indicators used are different. This is because each administration has a different set of PDP.

“StatDev is not intended to compare performance across government administrations as it is anchored on the PDP indicators. We are aware that each administration has different socioeconomic-environment development priorities, thus, it’s not comparable,” she stressed.

Based on the data, 10 of the 14 sectors had at least half of their indicators posting high or medium likelihood of being achieved by 2022.

A total of 126 indicators showed a high likelihood of being achieved; 33, medium likelihood; and 141 showed low likelihood of achieving their respective targets in 2022.

The PSA said a high likelihood of being achieved means a score of over 0.9, while a medium likelihood has a score range of 0.5 to 0.9. For low likelihood, the score should be less than 0.5.

The targets on Science and Technology; Social Protection; Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; and Shelter and Housing have low likelihood of being achieved.

“It is important to note that an indicator with low likelihood of achieving the target does not necessarily mean that the end-of-plan target will not be met,” the PSA said.

“The likelihood serves as an indicator that the actual growth rate from the baseline to the latest data given the number of years elapsed is relatively low for the required growth rate from the baseline to the end-of-plan target given the number of years covered. The likelihood may improve as the actual data improve in succeeding years,” it explained.

Who’s to blame?

In terms of Science and Technology, the PSA said the low likelihood stemmed from the low number of technology business incubators (TBI) graduates.

Based on the data, TBI graduates were only 18.8 percent or 188 graduates of the 1,000 target between 2017 and 2020.

However, the number of Filipino industrial designs registered, and number of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) graduates in Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) already passed the 50-percent mark of their end-of-plan target.

Meanwhile, in terms of social safety nets in 2020, the number of deaths and the number of missing persons due to natural and human-induced disasters placed at 257 and 56, respectively, were a long way from the end-of-plan target of zero.

Further, the number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who are members in the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) declined to 710,837 in 2020 from 1,375,015 in 2019, rendering a shortfall of 1.2 million from the target value.

The PSA also said the percentage of the population covered by social health insurance posted at 87 percent is still short of the 100-percent target coverage.

For Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the PSA said, out of 12 major commodities, only sugarcane and abaca posted medium likelihood, while the rest had low likelihood of achieving their respective target yields.

“Majority of the indicators under the sector showed low likelihood of achieving the 2022 target,” the PSA said.

Further, the number of small farmer/fisherfolk organizations that participated in institutional capacity building on innovative financing was 198, which was way below the target of 1,325.

Pandemic restrictions

THE PSA said this was mainly due to the travel and mass gathering restrictions from community quarantine policies with the onset of the pandemic.

These, the PSA said, limited the conduct of on-ground and/or organized group training and other capacity-building activities as programmed.

In terms of Shelter and Housing, the PSA said the proportion of socialized housing met versus housing needs posted a value of 8.38 percent compared to its target of 16.53 percent.

However, the PSA noted that the proportion of low-cost housing targets met to housing needs was at 5.27 percent, which almost hit the 5.5-percent target.

In order to assess the progress of each sector in achieving the end-of-plan targets of its respective indicators, the PSA said the good, average and poor thresholds were used.

The good threshold sector meant that the percentage of indicators included in StatDev 2020, which posted low likelihood of achieving their respective end-of-plan targets, is at most 33.3 percent.

For average, the percentage of indicators included in StatDev 2020, which posted low likelihood of achieving their respective end-of-plan targets, is more than 33.3 percent but at most 50 percent.

In terms of the poor indicators, the percentage of indicators included in StatDev 2020, which posted low likelihood of achieving their respective end-of-plan targets, is more than 50 percent.

“It should be noted that poor sectoral progress does not necessarily mean that the concerned agencies under the sector performed poorly,” PSA said.

“The sectoral progress is affected by two factors, namely: number of indicators considered and latest available data for the indicators. A poor sectoral progress may still improve in subsequent years during the plan period with the changes/updates in the sector,” it added.

The StatDev 2020 is anchored on the PDP 2017-2022. Based on the PDP Results Matrices (PDP-RM), strategies and programs have been identified to get the country moving toward sustained growth.

The targets have been set for these strategies against which the development efforts of the government will be measured vis-à-vis the plan.

From the measurable outputs/targets in the PDP-RM, the PSA compiled data for the key indicators by sector. However, the PSA said, due to data unavailability, not all the strategies or targets in the PDP are covered in the StatDev.

Image courtesy of Malacanang Presidential Photographers Division via AP

Read full article on BusinessMirror

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