Musings On Philippine Healthcare 2010 20 26

I can guess that we probably have a high coverage rate in the Philippines. This is because unlike the US in the Philippines if you have work you have PhilHealth,SSS and GSIS. This leaves two groups of people out. The rich people who don’t “work” (own business , etc), and the very poor who can’t but it. Of the rich, they obviously have cash to burn but I suspect if in the USA one of the major causes of bankruptcy is medical emergency/conditions then the rich of the Philippines may not have it any much better. The poorest of the poor have healthcare if they live in Makati and Muntinlupa and during elections government officials such as the soon to be former president distribute PhilHealth Cards.
What I’m trying to say is that during the happy moments that my mind wanders towards the Philippine Government I see PhilHealth, SSS and GSIS, without the same kind of fight that the US encountered in trying to enact them. What I see is a Davao where I saw less people smoking because of too many restrictions (that I agree with). What I see is a Makati where Jejomar Binay is showing the Philippines what can be done by the local government for it’s constituents. What I see is a President (GMA) who has shown just how powerful the presidency can be with the right incentives.  We have a people whose trying to learn about the candidates.  We have the BIR harrassing Shell which shows we aren’t as controlled by corporations as the US (Although I don’t agree with what they are doing, this is almost extortion).
There is hope. The Philippines is not that far away from where it could be!!!

rePost :: Road pricing in the Netherlands & using math to reduce traffic | A Smarter Planet Blog :: Quick notes

I constanly site this during conversations with friends about traffic.  Looks just about right.

1. Road pricing trial results in the Netherlands.
Consistent with the themes in this morning’s transportation forum, road pricing is a growing tool being used by cities and states around the world to change behaviors drivers and shift the balance of transportation from car-dependent to a more multi-modal form system. Six month ago, IBM and NXP Semiconductors began a pilot in Eindhoven to implement variable road pricing based on traffic demand, time of day and type of car (i.e., size + environmental impact of vehicle). Following are some insights from the pilot:

  • * Seventy percent of drivers improved their driving behavior by avoiding rush-hour traffic and using highways instead of local roads.
  • * On average, these drivers in the trial saw an improvement of more than 16 percent in average cost per kilometer.
  • * A clear system of incentives is critical to changing driving behavior.
  • * Instant feedback provided via an On-Board Unit display on the price of the road chosen and total charges for the trip is essential to maximizing the change in behavior.

via Quick notes: Road pricing in the Netherlands & using math to reduce traffic | A Smarter Planet Blog.

rePost :: National Juries :: Overcoming Bias

Read the whole thing by clicking through the overcoming bias blog!!!
Would something like this work for the Philippines? No as long as the Education System is in shambles we cannot do anything as radical as this.

National Juries

The reason so many bad policies are good politics is that so many people vote. … Ignorant voters … are biased towards particular errors. …

The best way to improve modern politics? … The number of voters should be drastically reduced so that each voter realizes that his vote will matter. Something like 12 voters per district … selected at random from the electorate. With 535 districts in Congress … there would be 6,420 voters nationally. A random selection would deliver a proportional representation of sexes, ages, races and income groups. This would improve on the current system, in which the voting population is skewed … the old vote more than the young, the rich vote more than the poor, and so on.

To safeguard against the possibility of abuse, these 6,420 voters would not know that they had been selected at random until the moment when the polling officers arrived at their house. They would then be spirited away to a place where they will spend a week locked away with the candidates, attending a series of speeches, debates and question-and-answer sessions before voting on the final day.  All of these events should be filmed and broadcast, so that everyone could make sure that nothing dodgy was going on.

More here.  This logic is simple and strong enough for most folks to both understand and accept.  Yet most would still prefer our current system – why?
via Overcoming Bias : National Juries.

Musing on Philippine Politics and Healthcare 2010 02 26

People who follow the politics in the USA knows host stupid the people in the system can be.
I’m watching Citizen Tube here http://www.youtube.com/citizentube?feature=ticker on the Healthcare summit. I’m seriously envious of them right now. When we have senators who are hitting each other with personal snide remarks. When most of the questions that are being asked in Presidential forums are not up to snuff, Simply put I have no Idea who has the policy-fu down pat. Who knows basic economics, basic public policy etc. Damn. and you have self styled pundit who really know nothing.

Please Help With Question :: Mind Games And The 2010 Elections | Filipino Voices

Stat friends especially those who work for the said polling firms please help with this question.

In the past, face-to-face interviewing was viewed by US opinion research experts as an appropriate method for conducting opinion surveys. It ostensibly allowed them to select the “right” respondent to be interviewed. After major failures, however – notably, the erroneous forecast of Thomas Dewey’s victory over Harry Truman in the 1948 US presidential elections– this survey method was abandoned, so much so that reputable pollsters in the US have now discarded it altogether.
Why was this? We invite some experts to tell us why. Chava Frankfort-Nachnias and David Nachmias in Research Methods in the Social Sciences write: “The very flexibility that is the interviewer’s chief advantage leaves room for the interviewer’s personal influence and bias.”
The pollster Kenneth Warren in his book, In Defense of Public Opinion Polling, says: “The cons of door-to-door interviews far outweigh the pros…Because of the sensitivity or personal nature of some questions, interviewers, because they were placed in face-to-face situations, have admitted that they sometimes guessed or fudged responses…These problems are a major source of bias in personal interviews, causing significant contamination of the poll data.”
These methodological and practical problems, according to Warren, doomed face-to-face interviews forever. By 1980, nobody in the US wanted to pay for this type of “fatally flawed and grossly inaccurate” surveys.
This, however, seems to have had no persuasive effect on our local pollsters.
A second glaring weakness is the extensive and general use of quota sampling to create “a representative sample” of the Philippine population. In quota sampling, survey respondents are picked from different types of people (e.g. by age, sex, religion, income) and various predetermined areas (e.g. region of country, as well as urban or rural).
This method is the most familiar form of non-probability sampling. It is supposed to mirror the same proportions in the targeted survey populations, but doesn’t. And it proved to be an earth-shaking failure in 1948 after three leading US pollsters–Gallup, Roper and Crossley—erroneously called the US presidential election in favor of Dewey instead of Truman. In the United Kingdom, where it persisted, it was blamed for the failure of the pollsters to predict Prime Minister John Majors’ victory in 1992.
“Quota sampling could never work in practice,” says Professor Warren. “Not only could pollsters not know the exact demographics so they could pick a representative sample that actually reflected the proper demographical proportions, but it was naïve to think that the interviewer could manage to interview the precise people needed to fill each quota.”
Thus today, reputable US pollsters rely almost exclusively on probability random sampling to create a “representative sample,” says Warren.
Why then do local pollsters continue to use quota sampling and face-to-face interviewing for their surveys? Why haven’t they adopted probability random sampling, which has protected US opinion polls from using contaminated data?
via Mind Games And The 2010 Elections | Filipino Voices.

rePost::New law lets Coast Guard stop ships from sailing – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

This new law is washed from the blood of all those who have died to the GREED of ship operators and the carelessness/greed of officials. In some ways I have a feeling that laws are not enough for people can and will still be bribed. This is a small but important step for the transportation industry of an archipelago of 7100 islands.

New law lets Coast Guard stop ships from sailing

First Posted 22:08:00 02/22/2010
MANILA, Philippines — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has signed a new law giving the Philippine Coast Guard increased law enforcement powers, including the authority to detain and prevent from sailing substandard passenger and cargo vessels plying the country’s waters.
Known as the “Philippine Coast Guard Act of 2009” or Republic Act 9993, the new law aims to further enhance maritime safety and prevent sea tragedies.
Investigations into some of the worst disasters in maritime history that occurred in Philippine waters showed there was need to pinpoint clearer responsibility for the enforcement of maritime safety regulations.
Eight years in the legislative mill, the new law strengthens the arm of the Coast Guard to issue and enforce rules and regulations covering the “promotion of safety of life and property at sea on all maritime-related activities,” as well as promote marine environmental protection.
Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza called the Philippine Coast Guard Act of 2009 a measure that “has long been awaited by the maritime industry and the riding public.”
via New law lets Coast Guard stop ships from sailing – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

rePost::RP, other Asian countries told: Protect seas – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

When you go to beautiful tourist places in the Philippines, beauty of the natural sort, if you keep your ears open you might just hear mutter the words “enjoy this while you can in a few years this would be gone”. I have nothing against people who have have seen decades of change, environmental degradation and similar things. What I rail about is this attitude that we cannot do anything about this. The sense of inevitability we ascribe to losing these natural wonders to the pictures or even the description of people. We cannot accept this, we must not accept this. We as a people have an implicit obligation to the future generations to keep these places intact , beautiful and functioning.

UN REPORT SAYS

RP, other Asian countries told: Protect seas

First Posted 12:03:00 02/22/2010
MANILA, Philippines—East Asia’s economically viable coastal habitats and ecosystems, including those of the Philippines, are under threat from pollution, alien invasive species, and other factors which could impact the region’s poverty levels unless urgent action is taken, the United Nations Environment Program (Unep) said in a new report.
“With nearly three quarters of the region’s population depending directly or indirectly on coastal areas, and with 80 percent of the region’s GDP linked to the coastal natural resources, the time must be right for factoring the marine environment into the center of economic planning,” said Unep executive director Achim Steiner.
The East Asian Seas State of the Marine Environment report said economically important coastal habitats and ecosystems are under pressure as 40 percent of coral reefs and half of all mangroves have already been lost. Coral reefs generate an estimated $112.5 billion and mangroves $5.1 billion annually.
The East Asian Seas—which includes the region between China, the Republic of Korea, and Australia—have some of the world’s highest concentrations of shipping and fishing vessel activity. They account for 50 percent of global fisheries production and 80 percent of global aquaculture production.
via RP, other Asian countries told: Protect seas – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.

Better Government Please::Bus firms threaten to pull out of DOE’s CNG project – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Bus firms threaten to pull out of DOE’s CNG project
By Amy R. Remo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:42:00 02/21/2010
Filed Under: Oil & Gas – Downstream activities, Road Transport
MANILA, Philippines — Operators of compressed natural gas-run buses have threatened to pull out of the Department of Energy’s Natural Gas Vehicle Program for Public Transport (NGVPPT) over the government’s alleged failure to address the issues plaguing the program.
According to Roberto Torres, president of the RRCG Transport System Co. Inc., they have been unable to operate their CNG buses due to the inability of the “daughter” station of the Pilipinas Shell at Mamplasan to operate and provide fuel to them.
Torres said bus operators, which have already invested heavily for the project, have been losing some P200 million. He said his company has been suffering losses of about P1 million a month.
“Needless to say, the very promising pilot project of the NGVPPT has bogged down. We see our investment not only in the 45 CNG buses, but also in its technical support in terms of manpower training and supplier, as well as infrastructure-being wasted away and slowly sinking in the quagmire of Shell and DOE’s making,” he said.
via Bus firms threaten to pull out of DOE’s CNG project – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos.