Naz, Antonia Corinthia C and Mario Tuscan N. Naz. 2006. Modeling ...

For steps one to three, the researchers held focus group discussions (FGD), oneon-one
interviews and seminar-workshops with local officials and residents in
Barangays, Poblacion, Camp 4, and Tadiangan of Tuba. These were to determine the
important attributes of an ECOSWAM service, how they should be measured and the
number of levels per attribute, i.e., the degree or quality of each attribute devise some
parts of the questionnaire. The researchers also participated in the monthly meetings of
the Tuba ECOSWAM board, the public consultations on the proposed disposal site and
site inspection. In step four, which is unique to SP and is one of its advantages,
experimental designs were used to array attributes and levels into choice sets. The
researchers designed the arrays of the ECOSWAM attributes, the ‘product’ descriptions
and the choice sets. In step five, the “referendum” method was used as the basic
framework of the questionnaire design. In the case of public goods, the referendum
model is preferred as it invokes the correct payment context and the full range of values
appropriate to public goods. Posing the elicitation question in the form of a referendum
enables citizens to make binding decisions about the provision of public goods (Mitchell
and Carson, 1989).
In each choice set, a varying alternative was presented along with a fixed base
case. The base case is that option which is perceived to be the simplest and cheapest
option to meet the minimum requirements under RA 9003. The status quo of burning
and open dumping of waste did not constitute the base case since this is no longer
acceptable under RA 9003. Two sets of questionnaires were designed- first, for the
survey of the households and second, for the business establishments. These consisted
of the following sections: (1) Introduction to the study and to the solid waste situation in
Tuba; (2) Environmental Knowledge, Attributes and Perceptions (EKAP); (3)
ECOSWAM service choice sets; (4) Debriefing Questions; (5) Solid waste management
practices, (6) Socio-economic Characteristics; and (7) Questions about the
Questionnaire. The questionnaires were refined and translated into the Ilocano dialect
during the training-workshops with the enumerators in the three barangays. The
questionnaire for the household survey was further refined after the pilot study of 200
households and two pre-tests. The questionnaire for the business establishments
underwent the same process of refinement, except that it had only one pre-test because
of the experience gained with the questionnaire for the households.
The research team administered the questionnaires through face-to-face or inperson
interviews. To give the households time to think, the enumerators asked them
how sure they were of their answers to each choice set in a scale of 1 to 5. The
respondents could change their answers until such time that they were very sure of their
final answer. To give the business establishments time to think, the enumerators also
asked them the reasons for their final answer in each choice set.
In steps six and seven, econometric modeling was done for the households and
business establishments separately using conditional logit regression. The LIMDEP
statistical software was used to generate the choice models. The respondent was asked
to select the ‘preferred’ option (described by attributes at various levels) from a choice
set.
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3.2.1. Ecological Solid Waste Management (ECOSWAM) Services
Preferences of Households