racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

I got an email detailing the plight of residents of Infanta, Quezon, and linking to the SAGIP-BUHAY INFANTA website. The welcome text of the site is copied below. With the calamity our fellow Filipinos have experienced, I think anything we can contribute would be deeply appreciated.

Angelo

A 6 December post on the Internet Security and Warfare (ISAW) weblog.

Sensible Recommendations, IMHO. Anyone interested in securing their systems should act proactively. After all, hackers with malicious intent (i.e. crackers) are usually one step ahead of everyone else in terms of security (and breaches, thereof).

- Angelo

In a hearing Tuesday, November 8, 2004, the Senate Finance Subcommittee G, chaired by Senator Manuel A. Roxas II, deferred approval of the Proposed Year 2005 Budget of the FY 2005 budget of the Office of the Director General (ODG) of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), or the NEDA proper (or mother agency), pending resolution of issues raised by Senator Richard Gordon. In particular, Senator Gordon sought clarification on NEDA’s role in the processing and approval of the Subic Bay Port Development Project. He expressed concern on the appropriateness of the investment, which involves a loan by the National Government from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation amounting to 16.45 billion Yen, when at the time he was chair of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA), the SBMA had already bid out to the private sector the construction of the ports, at no cost to the Government.

According to Senator Roxas, NEDA should be able to submit, in writing, within the next few days the agency’s responses to the issue raised, as well as to other possible concerns that are likely to be raised in the floor deliberations during the Plenary Session for the agency’s budget. NEDA targets to provide the required documents by December 15.

The subcommittee also deferred approval of the proposed budget of the Philippine National Volunteers Service Coordination Agency (PNVSCA), but approved that of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), National Statistics Office (NSO), Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), Statistical Research and Training Center (SRTC), and the Tariff Commission (TC). The aforementioned institutions are all NEDA attached agencies.

The Plenary Session to discuss the NEDA budget, and that of other Executive agencies is expected to be held sometime in January of 2005.

(Providing technical support to NEDA officials, the author was in attendance during the hearing, and the previous day’s briefing for Senator Roxas, as well as the Appropriations Committee hearings and Plenary Session floor deliberations in the House of Representatives for the NEDA budget and the Development Budget Coordination Committee/DBCC.)

According to this post on slashdot, which quotes a CNET article, Firefox users are less likely to click on advertisement links. I’d reckon it’s because Firefox users are more likely to be tech-savvy than IE users. It’s not that all IE users are not tech-savvy, but you’re more likely to be such a person if you’ve at least bothered to try a browser alternative to IE, especially Firefox. More so if you enjoy the enhanced security and other added features (tabbed browsing rocks!).

And if you’re tech savvy, you’d most likely be thinking twice before clicking on links, especially those that may be deemed unsafe or unsecure, or at the very least a nuisance.

IMHO, IE is a mediocre application.

Angelo

This article, which appeared in the 1 December issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports on yet another paper published by professors from the UP School of Economics
making a stand on our present economic situation, this time entitled
“Population and Poverty: The Real Score”. Recall that a few months
back, they published ” The deepening crisis: the real score on deficits and the public debt” (click here to download a PDF copy),
a paper warning on an impending fiscal crisis if Government does not
implement concrete–and drastic–measures to curb a possible debt
default, which would lead to credit downgrade/s and consequently
further make it difficult for the government to finance its deficits
(due to higher cost of borrowing). Recall further that I likewise made a blog post commenting on their publication on fiscal crisis.
Now they’re raising another issue. I hope the Administration would
listen to the distinguished UPSE professors, similar to how Malacanang
seemed to have listened and reacted when the paper on the looming
fiscal crisis was published.

Status report: as
of writing, the Executive had facilitated/fast-tracked the endorsement
to Congress of eight revenue-generating measures, four of which had
been passed, albeit with revisions. The Executive had likewise
fast-tracked various “reorganization,” “rationalization,”
“streamlining,” “austerity”–or whatever you may call it–programs in
order to arrive at a leaner bureaucracy.

If you ask me, I’m still not quite comfortable with Government’s
passing the buck, or letting us, commonners, carry the burden of
providing the solutions, for instance in affording government employees
(such as myself) lesser benefits in terms of allowances and other
material or non-material perks in the face of the possibility that we
would have to carry the brunt of the increased taxes (which may
ultimately be passed on to us as consumers), and when big-time
officials are known to be spend-thrift with government resources. And
recent developments show that corruption still abounds even–or most
especially in?–the highest echelons of government and the military.
This is also in view of Congressmen still holding on to their PhP 70
million each in pork barrel allocations when they can instead allow for
some cuts to at least be able to contribute to the pagtitipid
(savings). But I guess that’s life. Perhaps I can only count on a move,
prospectively in the near future, to the more lucrative and challenging
private sector, if I want to provide better for my growing family (and
as well rid myself of the various headaches that are constantly
hounding me with all these issues I am involved in given my line of
work).

Come to think of it, the Administration may have reacted to the paper on fiscal crisis in an opportunistic manner,
since it greatly benefited from public perception especially on the
perceived need to immediately undergo several drastic measures, which
would have faced much opposition without an adequate justification or
precedent. But it cannot be denied that circa 2002 to 2003,
international publications (FEER, the Economist, Newseek, Time) were
already discussing about an impending debt crisis in the country, which
is precursor to a fiscal crisis.

Dr. Arsenio Balisacan, my
professor in Development Economics at the UPSE (DE 291, which I took
first Semester of SY 2004-2005) and, at present, also the director of SEARCA – the SEAMEO Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture,
made it a point to emphasize that an uncontrollable population growth
rate is one of the main reasons why the Philippines, which used to be
one of the fastest-growing, now lags behind its ASEAN neighbors in
terms of economic growth and development.

Dr. Balisacan had
co-authored a study, “The Population-Poverty Nexus: The Philippines in
Comparative East Asian Context,” which, is a part a Philippine Center for Population and Development (PCPD)-supported publication “The Ties that Bind: Population and Development in the Philippines.” The findings …

…
showed that the Philippines and Thailand were neck and neck in terms of
population size and per capita GDP in 1975. Twenty-five years since,
Philippine population ballooned to 75 million while the number of Thais
was pegged at 62 million. In the same year Thai women have, on the
average, only 2 children or a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.9 while
the Philippine TFR stood at 3.6 or an average of 3 to 4 children per
woman.
…
The decline in the population growth rate of Thailand
is complemented with an increasing per capita GDP, growing to about 8
times the 1975 level. Indonesia ’s per capita GDP grew 6.5 times and
South Korea 10 times. And the Philippines ? A measly 2.6
times! But it had the highest population growth rate of 2.36 % a year,
on the average, among the four.
…
How much would the
savings be in terms of the cost of education and health services if the
Philippine population growth followed that of Thailand ? According to
the study, from 1996 to 2000 some 52 billion pesos from the health
sector and 128 billion from the education sector from 1991 to 2000
could have been saved. These savings could have been spent instead on
the agricultural sector where most of the country’s poor belong. With
greater investments in agriculture, slower population growth, and a
rise in income, rural poverty could decline by 70 percent and national poverty by 60%.

(A PDF copy of the “layman’s version” of the research can be downloaded through this link.)

In
our class, the professor often stressed the importance of supporting
theory with empirical evidence, and as well the need to distinguish
between correlation and causality. Now while there are numerous
theories on the relationship between population and economic growth and
development, it is evident from empirical findings that Government needs to take a firmer stance in population management if it is serious in reaching its goals for the economy.

Oddly,
Dr. Balisacan is not one of the authors of the new paper. I was
expecting he would be, given the topic, and given that he claims this
to be an advocacy of his. The professor related to us that he had, upon
invitation, presented the results of his study to Congress early second
semester of this year, when the population issue was still
hotly-contested, given Rep. Edcel Lagman’s sponsoring/proposing legal
measures to provide for more reasonable population management
programs/policies. Sadly, the media’s pick-up of the issue was quite
hyped, as they focused on population- or even birth-control (which, I
was informed, was quite far from what was proposed).

With all
the ensuing national issues and problems, including the fiscal crisis
scare, corruption scandals in the military, and most recently the wave of typhoons still currently devastating our northern and southern Luzon regions, the discussions on population management were thrown to the backburner. But with
the emerging arguments being brought forward by some distinguished
members of our academic community, perhaps we can again actively
discuss the importance of considering the contribution of sound
policies and programs in population management to the economic growth
and development of our nation, which is, arguably, currently still in
bad shape (yes, contrary to media spin by the Administration).

We
cannot turn a blind eye to this pressing issue. We cannot just let our
population grow at an uncontrollable rate for preference for ‘natural’
methods of family planning by the dominant institutions. I would argue
that it would, indeed, be more attuned to the teachings of our
faith to be humane and compassionate to our less fortunate brethren by
working for an improved economic situation in terms of growth and
development–most especially growth and development deemed to be
equitable.

It’s a difficult challenge, most
especially in coming to a consensus on the matter. But for sure, we
have problems, and someone has to address it at some point. As the old Philippine Collegian headline went, “Kung hindi tayo, sino? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?”
(If not us, then who? If not now, then when?). I hope the Church,
Government and, more importantly, society, will be up to it.

- J. Angelo Racoma

By this time you may have already noticed that UPSE professors seem to be fond of “real scores.”

I
have yet to secure an e-copy of the publication cited, but once I do, I
will post a link here. An excerpt from the Inquirer article (emphases
mine) follows below.

UP economists ask Church to soften population stand
Updated 05:18am (Mla time) Dec 01, 2004
Blanche Rivera – brivera@inquirer.com.ph

THE
COUNTRY’S top economists have called on the Catholic Church hierarchy
to adopt a “more tolerant and humane” stance on the need for a national
population policy for the sake of the poor who are suffering because of
their large family sizes.

In a paper titled “Population and
Poverty: The Real Score,” 17 economists from the University of the
Philippines School of Economics said the Catholic clergy in the country
should allow families to choose their preferred family planning method,
consistent with the Second Vatican Council’s teaching that the
final arbiter of moral decisions is one’s informed and responsible
conscience.
…
poverty incidence in the country rose
significantly with a bigger family size. Poverty incidence for a
“family of one” is 9.8 percent compared with 57.3 percent for a family
of nine or more.

“Family size is directly related to the
vulnerability to poverty or the likelihood of falling into poverty
owing to exogenous (external) shocks,” the paper said.
…
“It is more difficult to improve governance than adopt a national population policy.
Improving governance would take several decades to achieve based on the
experience of other countries, so we’re saying it is easier to adopt a
population policy to help address poverty,” [Dr. Ernesto] Pernia said.
…
The economists identified three elements for an effective population policy:

•
Reduction of unwanted fertility, which accounts for 16 percent of the
population growth. The economists urged the government to use public
funds to buy contraceptives as most poor families do not have access to
an effective family planning service.

• Raising the quality of
education and fostering women’s empowerment that would lead couples to
want smaller families. A large wanted family size contributes 19
percent to the country’s population growth.

• Creating job
opportunities for women that would result in later childbearing age and
wider birth spacing that would slow the population momentum, which
accounts for 65 percent of the population growth.

“These
measures are mutually reinforcing and, if backed by appropriate reforms
in the economic and other social sectors, would bring about the best
results… Even if not much can be done about public investments in
infrastructure owing to the fiscal constraints, it would help ease the
demand pressure coming from rapid population growth,” the paper said.