Claire Dennis S. Mapa, Ph.D. (born November 6, 1969) is a

Filipino Filipino may refer to: * Something from or related to the Philippines ** Filipino language, standardized variety of 'Tagalog', the national language and one of the official languages of the Philippines. ** Filipinos, people who are citizens of th ...

economist and statistician. He is the National Statistician and Civil Registrar General (NSCRG) of the

Philippine Statistics Authority The Philippine Statistics Authority (Filipino: ''Pangasiwaan ng Estadistika ng Pilipinas''), abbreviated as PSA, is the central statistical authority of the Philippine government that ''collects, compiles, analyzes and publishes statistical inf ...

with a rank of Undersecretary as appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte. He succeeds Lisa Grace Bersales whose tenure ended on 22 April 2019. He served as dean and professor at the School of Statistics at the

University of the Philippines The University of the Philippines (UP; fil, Pamantasan ng Pilipinas Unibersidad ng Pilipinas) is a state university system in the Philippines. It is the country's national university, as mandated by Republic Act No. 9500 (UP Charter of 200 ...

in Diliman,

Quezon City Quezon City (, ; fil, Lungsod Quezon ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read in Filipino as Kyusi), is the List of cities in the Philippines, most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a populatio ...

and as the vice president and executive director of the UP Statistical Center Research Foundation.

Early life

Born on November 6, 1969, in

Bacolod Bacolod, officially the City of Bacolod (; hil, Dakbanwa/Syudad sang Bacolod; fil, Lungsod ng Bacolod), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the region of Western Visayas, Philippines. It is the capital of the province of Negros Occidenta ...

Negros Occidental Negros Occidental ( hil, Nakatungdang Negros; tl, Kanlurang Negros), officially the Province of Negros Occidental, is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Western Visayas Regions of the Philippines, region. ...

,, Mapa obtained his bachelor's degree in

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

at the University of the Philippines School of Statistics in 1990. After teaching for two years in the University of Negros Occidental – Recoletos, he went back to the UP School of Statistics to be an instructor and enrolled in Master of Science in statistics. mid-way through his graduate studies, he pursued his long-time interest in economics at the UP School of Economics (UPSE). He earned his degrees in MA Economics and MS Statistics in 2002 and 2004, respectively. He was then awarded a fellowship at the

UP School of Economics The University of the Philippines School of Economics is a degree-granting unit of the University of the Philippines Diliman (U.P.), where it occupies the buildings of the Philippine Center for Economic Development (PCED). The school offers two Ba ...

, where he purchased his Ph.D. in Economics in 2008.

Career

Mapa is the past president of the Philippine Statistical Association, Inc. (PSAI) Board of Directors, and a member of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) Advisory Council. In addition, he served as the Dean of the UP School of Statistics from September 2014 to 2017, and was re-appointed by Former UP President Alfredo Pascuall in which Mapa served his second term as Dean from 2017 to 2020. However, his second term was cut short in May 2019 when he was appointed as Undersecretary of the PSA. He continuously serves as a resource person in capacity building undertakings in the area of

econometric Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

methods. He has conducted trainings for the technical staff of various government agencies such as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), the Population Commission (POPCOM), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Philippine Competition Commission (PCC), Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and the Philippine Statistical Research and Training Institute (PSRTI). He was also invited by the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs to serve as a resource speaker during their policy discussions on the country's TRAIN Law in 2018. On May 27, 2019, Mapa was officially appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as the second National Statistician and Civil Registrar General succeeding Lisa Grace Bersales. He will serve as the Undersecretary of the

for five years.

Work in the Philippine Statistics Authority

Mapa is heading the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). Among the programs implemented by the agency include the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) and the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS). The PSA is also set to conduct of the Census of Population and Housing (CPH) in May 2020. In addition to the PhilSys and the CBMS, Mapa's leadership has set three goals for the PSA: to harmonize all official statistics reported by the PSA, to introduce new techniques and technologies in statistics (NTTS), and to urgently address the issues concerning the Civil Registration.

Awards and recognition

Mapa has been awarded the ''One UP Professorial Chair'' (2016–2018; 2019–2021), the

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (; commonly abbreviated as BSP in both Filipino and English) is the central bank of the Philippines. It was established on July 3, 1993, pursuant to the provision of Republic Act 7653 or the New Central Bank Act ...

(BSP) ''Sterling Professor in Government and Official Statistics'' (2014, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019), the ''Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture'' (SEARCA) ''Regional Professorial Chair for poverty research'' (2015), and the ''UP Centennial Professorial Chair'' (2011). He is also the ''2008 National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) Outstanding Young Scientist'' in the field of economics. He was a visiting scholar at the International Centre for the Study of East Asian Development (ICSEAD) in Japan, the Gross National Happiness Commission of

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

and the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) in Germany. His research in the areas of

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...

analysis, household savings,

fertility Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertili ...

, population dynamics, measuring

market risk Market risk is the risk of losses in positions arising from movements in market variables like prices and volatility. There is no unique classification as each classification may refer to different aspects of market risk. Nevertheless, the most ...

, and forecasting methods for volatility has won awards from the NAST. This includes the ''Best Scientific Paper Award'' in 2007, 2010, and 2011 and the ''Best Scientific Poster Award'' in 2009, 2010, and 2011.

Published research

He has written chapters for nationally and internationally published books and monographs in the areas of

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

poverty Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social, economic, and political causes and effects. When evaluating poverty in ...

and

hunger In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In the ...

youth unemployment Youth unemployment is the situation of young people who are looking for a job but cannot find a job, with the age range being defined by the United Nations as 15–24 years old. An unemployed person is defined as someone who does not have a job ...

, and

energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...

. He has also written for ''The Philippine Statistician'', ''The Philippine Review of Economics'', ''The Philippine Journal of Development'', and the ''Asian Economic Journal'', among others. He has been involved in more than 40 research undertakings, mostly involving policy researches in both public and private sectors.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mapa, Dennis Living people Filipino statisticians 20th-century Filipino economists 1969 births University of the Philippines alumni University of the Philippines faculty