This blog presents only one side of an issue. Issues presented in this blog are usually on governance, research, marketing and strategic management. Occasionally,other relevant issues may be presented. Unless specified, the context of the blog relates to Philippine conditions.
Less of the creative promises. More of definitive targets.
Less discussion on what needs to be done. More commitment on what the Philippines would be at the end of the six-year term.
Less discussion on what problems we inherited from previous presidents. More of what the new president commits to pass on to the next generation.
I will vote for the candidate who can commit to the following targets by May 2016.
1. On basic education, a ratio of one classroom to 30 students (maximum) across all towns in the country with each classroom equipped with at least one computer and all the books required.
2. On tertiary education, University of the Philippines reclaiming its ranking as among the top 10 universities in Asia.
3. On law enforcement, a ratio of one police to 300 people across all Barangays with each police fully equipped with all the tools for effective policing.
4. On health, a population growth that is 20% less than the ratio in 2009 and an average life span that is 20% more than the level in 2009.
5. On revenue generation, 200% more than the level in 2009 including revenues generated by the BIR, BOC and BID.
6. On foreign investments, 200% more than the level in 2009 particularly in critical investment areas such as energy, transportation and infrastructure.
7. On environment, a forest cover that is three times more than the present level and all rivers, esteros and water bodies in urban urban areas free of vertical structure.
8. On transportation, Bicol and Baguio interconnected by high speed, efficient train systems.
9. On roads, a national road network that is 100% longer than the level in 2009 40% of which would have an average roughness index of 4.5 (at any given time).
10. On enterprise development, an SME population that is twice that of the 2009 level. Existing SMEs (of about 1.0 million) are given assistance to generate at least three additional employees (or at least 3.0 million new jobs in six years).
October of each year is when we celebrate statistics and recall the significance of this discipline. The annual event goes by each year with just a ring of stakeholders, mostly statisticians and academicians, attending the conference that the Philippine Statistical Association and other institutions organize.
It is not surprising that the annual celebration is not as popular as other professional events such as information technology, marketing and human resource. The field of statistics has an image closely associated with cold numbers and algorithms.
Tools and procedures in statistics are made to sound very inclusive with labels such as logistic regression and discriminant analysis. Back in college, some colleagues avoided degree courses that required the subject statistics. The discipline generally attracted talents who were usually office-bound and preferred a profile that was low key.
I am quite familiar with this perception because I have had the opportunity to work with extremely talented people in the field of statistics. At the same time, I am quite involved in a business primarily driven by statistics.
It is interesting how Peter Bernstein describes the value of statistics. Bernstein is a consultant and author of six books in economics and finance including the bestselling “Capital Ideas: The Improbable Origins of Modern Wall Street.” He is also editor of The Portable MBA in Investment and founding editor of The Journal of Portfolio Management.
He says that“The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk.” The core of that idea is statistics, a discipline that allows decision makers to look at the past and, with the precision of a scientist, confidently manage the future.
Statistics, he says, guide us over a vast range of decision-making, from allocating wealth to safeguarding public health, from waging war to planning a family, from paying insurance premiums to wearing a seatbelt, from planting corn to marketing cornflakes.
In more developed economies, statistics, as a discipline, has been transformed into a very important engine for governance and corporate decision making.Practitioners work hand in hand with corporate decision makers. There are many proven practical applications that benefit industries and government. Three hot applications are fraud detection, credit scoring and micro-targeting.
The goal of fraud detection is to manage or prevent the commitment of fraud. Fraud is a billion dollar menace. It affects government and private banks, insurance companies and many other institutions. Fraud has a broad definition and includes money laundering. Hot money that travels from one country to another is considered fraudulent. After the 9/11 incident in America, it became a hot application to manage the unrestricted flow of dollars financing terrorism and terrorist activities.
Through a clever application of computer-aided statistics, governments and banks are able to process terabytes of transactions and identify, with a high degree of confidence, the most likely fraudulent cases. This telescoping enables intelligence units to focus on the more likely fraudulent transactions with ease and precision at the least cost.
Credit scoring is an old application but is not as extensively used in the Philippines as it is in other more developed economies including those in Asia. The use of statistics in credit scoring enables users to create a working model that predicts, with a determinate level of confidence, customers who are good, moderate or bad credit risks. Used with powerful computers, this model may be deployed to identify, at the point of contact, customers who should be approved or denied of service without the need to elevate the decision to top management.
Microtargeting is a new application. Its application as a campaign strategy started in the 2004 presidential election in the United States. Its value was fully exploited by Barack Obama when he won the presidential nomination for the Democratic Party versus Hillary Clinton. It uses the same principle in analytics and statistics.
The discipline of statistics is so important to leave the task of celebrating and promoting its value in the hands of statisticians alone. The primary beneficiaries – decision makers and government executives – must find time to partner with the practitioners to drive the widespread use of statistics in decision making.
To paraphrase Bernstein, the capacity to manage risk, and with it the appetite to take risk and make forward-looking choices using statistics, are key elements of the energy that drives the economic system forward. Let us support statistical month.
The Asia-Pacific Centre for Research (Acre), Inc. is doing its share in promoting the value of statistics in decision making by organizing this year’s SPSS Users Group Convention around the theme of Discovery. This will be held on October 22, 2009 at the Sofitel Hotel in Pasay City. To register, contact Veronica Nicolas (Veronica_Nicolas@spss-ph.com)
