AUGUST IS NATIONAL CENSUS MONTH

THE NATIONWIDE conduct of the 2015 Census of Population (POPCEN 2015) begins in ten (10) days.   The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), pursuant to Republic Act No. 10625 (Philippine Statistical Act of 2013), is the lead agency tasked to take an inventory of the population of the entire Philippines.

About 90 thousand trained census-takers (enumerators), 23 thousand team supervisors, and five thousand census area supervisors will augment the PSA personnel in the gigantic task of taking a complete count of all persons throughout the country, either as members of a household or as residents of an institutional living quarter.

Earlier, President Benigno S. Aquino III issued Proclamation No. 1031 calling on the citizenry “to support and cooperate in the POPCEN 2015 by providing complete and correct information to census enumerators.”  The said proclamation also enjoins “all departments, other government agencies, including government-owned or -controlled corporations, as well as local government units (LGUs) to implement and execute the operational plans, directives and orders of the PSA Board through the PSA” relative to the census-taking.

The first official census in the Philippines was carried out in 1878 by the colonial Spanish government. The said census yielded a count of 5,567,685 persons living in the archipelago as of December 31, 1877.  In the last census of this kind conducted in the country in May 2010, the country’s population was placed at 92.34 million.

Updated information on the size of the population will provide government planners, policy makers and administrators with data on which to base their social and economic development plans and program.  Specifically, in government, it serves as basis for: 1) redistricting and apportionment of congressional seats; 2) allocation of resources and revenues, such as the Internal Revenue Allotment for LGUs; 3) creation/conversion of political and administrative units, such as provinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays; 4) formulation of policies concerning various segments of the population; and 5) development of policies and programs relative to the delivery of basic social services.  Businesses and industries use the statistical information from the census in the identification of sites for establishing businesses and determining consumer demands and supply of labor for the  production of various goods and services. # Sources – NSO/PSA