President Rodrigo Duterte has signed a memorandum circular, enjoining all sectors to support, cooperate with, and provide assistance to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to ensure the successful conduct of the 2020 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) in May 2020.
In Memorandum Circular No. 76 he signed on March 13, Duterte assigned the PSA Board as the National Census Coordinating Board (NCCB) which will issue rules and regulations necessary for the successful completion of the May 2020 census.
The PSA shall serve as the lead implementing agency which will take all steps necessary for the smooth conduct of the census and provide full-time support in planning and implementing activities for the census operations and ensure that the gathering, consolidation and analysis of the census data will be done in the most truthful, credible manner.
Duterte also enjoined all national government agencies, government-owned or controlled corporations, government financial institutions, state universities and colleges, and their attached agencies and instrumentalities, local government units, and the private sector to provide necessary assistance to the NCCB, the PSA, and the census boards at the local level in the conduct of the census, including related promotion, information dissemination, and program coordination.
The data collectors and processors, according to the memorandum circular, shall perform their duties and responsibilities with “utmost integrity and commitment” in accordance with existing laws, rules and procedures.
The PSA and its deputized officers and personnel are also directed to protect and ensure the confidentiality of the data and information obtained from the respondents.
The data and information of the respondents will also be held “in strictest confidence” in accordance with the Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act 10173) and other relative laws and regulations.
According to PSA official website, the CPH refers to the entire process of collecting, compiling, evaluating, analyzing, publishing and disseminating data about the population and living quarters in a country.
It entails the listing and recording of the characteristics of each individual and each living quarter as of a specified time and within a specified territory.
The goal of the 2020 CPH is “to provide government executives, policymakers, policy and planners with updated population and housing data as bases to their social and economic development plans, policies and programs.”
It will be the 15th census of population and 7th census of housing to be undertaken in the country since the first census in 1903.
Under the Philippine Statistical Act of 2013 (Republic Act 10625), the PSA will prepare and conduct periodic censuses on population, housing and other sectors of the economy.
May 2020 has been declared as National Census Month with May 1 as the census reference date. (PNA)
