TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, Aug 9 (PIA)—For those waiting for the survey to be in the list that populates the government’s social grants, there wont be any of them now.
This as the government has commissioned the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to do the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Listahanan, or the National Household Targeting System for poverty reduction as a tool to identify who and where the poor in the country, are.
Said to be the built-database of poor families as a basis for eligibility to the government’s social protection programs and services, the Listahanan, which uses the data collected from the DSWD enumerators is now to be performed by a force of 1100 census enumerators, 300 team supervisors and 60 census area supervisors implementing the Census of Population (PopCen) and the Community Based Monitoring System (CBMS), explains Bohol PSA Statistician Jessamyne Anne Alcazaren at the weekly Kapihan sa PIA.
‘No more Listahanan teams,” says Alcazaren, stressing that the government aid agencies would be sharing the PSA-gathered data for their programs.
That also means entertaining and properly responding to the survey enumerators, could be very crucial in getting into that list that has always been disputed by supposedly poor beneficiaries who have been skipped by the list, the PSA emphasized.
“Always give correct information, as this matters,” PSA supervising statistical specialist Emmanuel Galab said.
PopCen is supposed to be a mid-decade event, supposedly coming out in 2025 yet, but the president has seen the need to carry the PopCen in the soon to be once in every three years updating of the CBMS, according to Bohol’s chief statistician.
“The survey, while it carries with it the usual mid-decade PopCen, also has the CBMS, which seeks out and identifies the country’s poor while still keeping the provisions of the Data Privacy Law,” adds supervising statistician Galab.
By that, after extracting the PopCen data, the enumerators proceed to explain the details of the CBMS and the government need to set up a databank that would be the base for it’s social protection programs like who becomes eligible to conditional cash transfers, work for food programs and other key services.
Due to the sensitive personal information that can be generated in the survey, respondents have to fully understand the terms and agree to giving out the honest information, or they may lose the chances of government help if they do not properly respond to the PSA PopCen and CBMS enumerators.
“There is this real chance that they can be included or excluded in the list of the next year’s beneficiaries for government social protection programs,” Alcazaren said.
In short, this survey will update the beneficiaries of the government social programs in Bohol’s 48 town’s and city.
“Please support and accommodate the PSA enumerators, they have a schedule to beat and a quota, please do not waste their time,” she pleaded.
Speaking at the weekly forum, Alcazaren and Galab announced that the ongoing PopCen and CBMS enumeration had started last July 15 and runs until September 15.
In fact, according to the PSA, as of August 8, 2024, or three weeks into the enumerations, PSA has covered about 20.08 percent of their target.
Armed with android tablets, the team of 1300 PSA trained enumerators and data analysis personnel still has to cover much, before the PopCen results are officially declared in December 29. (PIABohol)
