The Philippine Dataset Project The Philippine dataset project is an initiative of Political Science 14 students under Dr.

Alicor L. Panao. The aim is to systematically collate as much information as possible pertinent to Philippine institutions, starting with the three branches of government. The dataset project is: a. a continuing project as it is intended to be upgraded, expanded and developed in succeeding course terms b. a non-proprietary undertaking intended to be archived with the UP Diliman Department of Political Science and co-owned by each and every student who participated in its construction. In other words, its authorship includes all the students who built the dataset through the information they collected while enrolled in the Pol Sci 14 course. c. Intended as an initiative to encourage the production of resources relevant in empirically driven quantitative analysis of economic and political problems How is this going to be done? 1. The class will be grouped into four, each group having around 5 to 6 members. 2. Each group will work on a research problem involving just one variable of interest. What are possible research problems? Possible research problems are: A. Legislative 1. How many members of the 15th (or 16th, whichever you fancy) Congress belong to a political dynasty? 2. Who among the members of the 15th Congress are the most productive in terms of legislative output? 3. What are the most common areas of legislation in the 15th (or 16th, again whichever you fancy) Congress? 4. Who are the richest members of Congress? 5. How many investigations in aid of legislation has Congress done since 1987? B. Executive 1. How many cabinet official are members of political families? 2. How many executive orders does the president churn out per year since 1987? 3. How many bills certified urgent by the president during the 15th Congress passed into law? What are these laws? 4. How much does the Office of the President spend per year since 1987? 5. How much of the Presidents discretionary fund is allocated and spent per year? C. The Judiciary 1. What is the profile of the current composition of the Supreme Court 2. Of actions involving the government since 1987, how many were decided in favor of government? 3. What is the nature of the legal questions submitted to the Supreme Court for cognizance? 4. How wealthy are the Supreme Court justices? 5. How many of the members of the Supreme Court are from political families? D. Other topics 1. How many provincial governors are members of political families?

2. How much do provincial governments allocate for social services? 3. How much revenue do local governments (can be a province, city, or municipality) earn per year? 4. How many skirmishes/encounters with rebel forces did the military experience since 1987? 5. Do the poorest provinces also have the most corrupt leaders? For Example A group may want to work on the question of how many members of the 15th Congress belong to a political family. The sole variable of interest here is political kinship. In other words the group will simply need to get a list of legislators who served in the 15th Congress then gauged which of them has political ties. It is important to operationalize what membership in political dynasty means in the first place (could be the fact of having a relative up to the 4th degree of consanguinity or affinity serving in any elective office at the city level up). To get the information they may start by simple internet search. Then, they can go to either to the House of Representatives or COMELEC and check the certificates of candidacy of the members. Public officials, by the way, are required to state if they have relatives in government so they may also want to check the members Statement of Assets and Liabilities (which the House definitely stores copies). The group does not even have to resort to actually calling or visiting the offices of the pertinent members of the House but this is also fine. What to take note of 1. Getting facts pertinent to the research problem 2. The demeanor and response of sources interviewed, if any. Were they cooperative? Were they afraid to disclose information? Was obtaining such information easy in the first place? 3. Peculiar observations. For example, watch out for those who are not from traditional political families but appear to be starting to build their own political dynasties. Who are they? 4. Also take note of the difficulties, drawbacks, and other issues encountered while gathering information.