Arroyo admin changed the way GDPs were computed

since coming into office.

Bakit ngayon lang lumabas ito!!! According to kuya mlq3:

Concerning Gov’t bares 7.3% 2007 GDP growth With robust 7.4% recorded in fourth quarter: Gov’t bares 7.3% 2007 GDP growth, strongest since 1976, a minor caveat.

You will see on the chart above, which comes from a presentation of Dr. Michael Alba, that the line showing the country’s GDP is broken at one point. I asked him what that meant. He said, it represents a change made in the manner GDP is computed, which makes all previous data and all subsequent data not precisely comparable to each other.

What the F-ck???

Eto naman ang sabi ni Jon Mariano:

Wow, galing talaga ni Arroyo. Noon kulang ang school rooms, ang solusyon ay baguhin ang pag-bilang, noon mataas ang unemployment rate, ang ginawa niya baguhin ang pagbilang, ngayon tumaas ang GDP ng super taas (unexpected daw), pero binago din pala ang pagbilang! Ganito ba ang itinuturo sa UP?

Heh.

Related:
- How to reduce the number of poverty-stricken families by moving the poverty line

UPDATE: From the Tribune Editorial:

Something smells in the data

02/03/2008

There was something smelly and not palatable with the way statistics are being suddenly and drastically revised by the Arroyo government.

A case in point was the third quarter gross domestic product (GDP), which the government statistics office said in a footnote to the “31-year” record growth performance it released Thursday that it was revised from 6.6 percent to 7.4 percent.

Amazing growth, considering the drought and the destructive typhoons that hit the country. Amazing, too, considering that manufacturing has been contracting, month, after month, after month.

But a list of data was supposedly updated, mainly on merchandise trade transaction, as a reason for the big kick up.

The sudden spurt in the government growth record was the reason Gloria, fresh from the World Economic Forum at the Swiss Alps, was able to proclaim to the world that the economy, in terms of GDP, grew 7.3 percent, while the gross national product (GNP) that takes into account remittances of the army of Filipinos working overseas rose 7.8 percent last year.

The government also revised the third quarter GNP growth rate to an astounding 8.8 percent.

Add to that, the figures showing that while it may take a lot of effort to prove that the figures are being massaged to suit Gloria, the frequent revisions of the economic data make every figure that the government churns out questionable.

The whole exercise in churning out economic data, more than making Gloria glow pink with self exaltation, was for local businesses to chart their road ahead for the year.

A difference of a decimal of a percentage point in the data may prove fatal to investment decisions, particularly those involving huge costs such as those in the property sector.

Now, we have the government saying the main economic data for the third quarter were off by nearly one percentage point.

The government can shrug it off as a pleasant error in the sense that the figure was ramped up instead of reduced by 0.8 points, but it still proved the unreliability of the numbers coming from supposedly official sources.

If such huge errors can be made, there would be less scruples for possible intentional managing of numbers for a crucial period, such as the visit of representatives of credit rating agencies that actually have only been made recently.

Would there be any difference if figures are padded for the meantime by 0.8-percentage point, and a quarter later say the figure was revised down or up depending on whatever the mood of those in Malacañang was for the moment?

The government has been censured internationally in the past for releasing way off figures.

Economists have bewailed the fact that they cannot rely on government for correct data.

The statistics institutions, in turn, have been complaining about the lack of funds and personnel for the skewed data.

Whatever the problem is, what was important for Gloria was that she can bask in the thought that the economy supposedly grew fastest during her term.

By the way, has not Gloria been proclaiming, one or two State of the Nation Addresses (Sona) back, that the country has the fastest economic growth in Asia and that it would be among the First World nation in 20 years?

Economists and representatives of multilateral institutions said it would need the economy to grow at least seven percent a year for the least of Gloria’s fantasies to come true.

So now the country had to have a 7.4-percent GDP growth last year.

What Gloria asks, Gloria gets — especially the untrue made into truth.