Arroyo's last SONA

(Following is the transcript of the segment "Analysis by Winnie Monsod" which aired on News on Q on July 13, 2009. Prof. Winnie Monsod is the resident analyst of News on Q which airs weeknights at 9:30 p.m. on Q Channel 11.) Last week, we compared the Arroyo administration with previous administrations in the areas of economic growth and poverty alleviation. And, we determined from the data published by the NSCB [National Statistics and Coordination Board] that while the country's economic growth did much better under Arroyo, poverty did not dramatically decline in her time and as a matter of fact increased between 2003 and 2006. What we're going to do now is to examine her goals that she set for herself as organized into the slogan "Beat the Odds." B for balanced budget. The Arroyo government must be given a grade of 100 per cent. The original target for 2007 was a budget deficit of 2 per cent and its actual deficit was only .2 or 2/10 of 1 per cent and last year 2008 it kept its budget deficit on track. Next in Beat the Odds is E. Education for all. This is broken down, by the way, into a 100 per cent net participation rate meaning to say everyone of school age is in school that's the most important. The other subgoals are: 3,000 school buildings a year being built and a computer put in every high school. Have these been accomplished? At the elementary level, net participation rate or the proportion of the number of enrollees 7-12 years old to population 7-12 years old for school year 2003-2004 was 81.72. By the way, in 2001 to 2002 that was already 97 per cent. Anyway, it means that to achieve the education for all this percentage must rise by 18.28 percentage points in six years to reach 100 per cent by school year 2009-2010 as envisioned. How much has it risen? For 2008-2009, the DepEd reports an elementary net participation rate of 85.12 per cent. In other words, in those 5 years it only increased by 3.4 percentage points in 5 years when it should have increased already by 15 percentage points. The President therefore has accomplished only 19 per cent of her target. So she gets a grade of 19 in this examination – a dismal failure. This comprises 80 per cent of her grade for education. The other 20 per cent would come from the two other targets – school buildings and computers. With respect to school buildings, it was determined that the more appropriate target would be in terms of classrooms. Assuming an average of 3.3 classrooms per building, which is what the statistics show, then you need 10,000 classrooms a year. Well, the total number of classrooms built, as of June 15, 2009, amount to 68,888 for a 115 per cent accomplishment rate and so I give her 115 per cent for this particular goal. With respect to one computer in every high school, I talked to Paul Soriano, a DepEd official, to get the data. It turns out that it is not just one computer in every high school but computer lab composed of 11 computers, 10 for the students, 1 for the teacher in every high school that they are trying to achieve and the latest data showed 4,019 out of 6,650 high schools already have their computer labs – an accomplishment rate of 60 per cent, with another 650 schools in the final bidding stages and 325 schools having started the bidding. Not only that. Director Soriano also reported that the 2009 budget includes the money for the computer labs for the rest of the 1,631 schools that still don't have these computers and he is positive that by the end of this school year 2009-2010, all public high schools in the country will have been equipped with computer labs. So for this computerization, I think the grade should be 100 per cent. Aggregating these grades and giving them proper weight, 80 per cent for elementary school participation rate, 10 per cent each for buildings and for the computer you get a weighted average of 36.7 per cent grade for education. Now for the automated elections. Since the target that it will no longer raise a doubt about its integrity is a target that is impossible to achieve, given the tendency of politicians to insist that they lost because they were cheated, so we're not going to grade that. But the target that the election process will be computerized was definitely achievable, particularly because the election computerization law was first passed in December 1997, and was intended to have been accomplished in 1998, or at the very latest, in time for the 2001 elections. I would put a grade as 50. Why? It can go either way. Then, we go to T for transport and digital infrastructure. Under the transportation target, the Arroyo administration aimed at linking the entire Philippines through a nautical highway. Per expert judgment, the Western Nautical Highway is 100 per cent complete so she gets 100 per cent for that and the Central Nautical Highway is 80 percent complete. Now for the digital part of that infrastructure target, she gets a grade of 25 per cent. Why so low? Simply because we do not have as yet our digital highway complete. And, why is that? Because of ZTE and all the controversy that came about because of corruption involved in the bidding for that project. So putting that all together, her grade for digital and infrastructure 90 + 25 divided by 2 she gets a grade of 57.5 per cent. So that takes care of the Beat part of Beat the Odds. Part 3 of our pre-SONA analysis next week, we will take care of “The Odds” part and also next week we will give the final grade of the Arroyo administration according to the goals it set out for itself. Meanwhile, this is Winnie Monsod on Q.