Census on housing, population starts

THE Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in Bicol has came up with alternative modes in collecting data for this year’s Census of Population and Housing (CPH) to prevent coronavirus (Covid-19) infection among its enumerators and their respondents.

“Here in Bicol, we hired 7,981 census personnel and 615 of them are enumerators. There will be a strict coordination with the barangay officials who will assist the enumerators in the conduct of the 2020 CPH,” Cynthia Perdiz, PSA Bicol chief said.

Perdiz said that since Bicol region remains under modified general community quarantine, the households have four options to undergo the census. One is the traditional face-to-face interviews with strict compliance to minimum health standards, which can be completed within 15 to 30 minutes.

The other modes are telephone interview and a computer-aided questionnaire, which can be filled up and submitted online.

The last mode is households may also choose to fill up a self-administered questionnaire, which later on will be collected by the enumerators.

“We are urging all the Bicolanos to participate and provide all the information needed for the completion of CPH. Rest assured that all the collected or gathered data are treated with utmost confidentiality,” Perdiz said. She also clarified that the conduct of the CPH is different from “Listahanan”, the household assessment of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

The CPH is the entire process of collecting, compiling, evaluating, analyzing, publishing and disseminating data about the population and living quarters in the country.

It aims to provide government executives, policy and decision makers, and planners with updated population and housing data that would guide them in socio-economic development planning and policy making at the national and local levels.(PIA5)