BAGUIO CITY– The Philippine Statistics Authority in the Cordillera Administrative Region (PSA-CAR) is confident that the statistics it generates can guide development planners, an official said Monday.
“We take pride in how Philippine statistics have continually evolved to the requirement of evidence-based decision making in the government, private sector and the civil society,” PSA-CAR regional director Villafe Alibuyog said during the launching of the Philippine Statistics Month.
She said with the growing demand and challenges of the ever-expanding data system, the PSA continuously adopts new and innovative ways to ensure that statistics produced are being optimized for policy use.
“Statistics is indispensable in the achievement of the vision for comfortable and secured lives for the Filipino people,” Alibuyog said.
She said that especially in government decisions, programs and plans are made based on statistics provided to them as the numbers allow the policy and decision-makers to see the situation, giving them a picture before they decide to spend government funds.
She said the country celebrates the statistical system to promote, enhance and instill awareness and appreciation of the importance and value of statistics to the different sectors of society.
This year’s celebration has the theme: “Data innovation: Key to a better nation”.
Alibuyog said President Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law the bill that institutionalized the community-based monitoring system (CBMS) which will be led by the PSA and implemented by the local government units (LGU).
The CBMS is a survey that used to be done only by the LGU with funds but with the passage of the law, the surveys will be done in all LGUs.
The survey contains all questions that will reflect the situation of a household, analyzed by the PSA for it to come up with the data.
Baguio’s use of data
City planning officer Evelyn Cayat on Tuesday said the city was able to generate several statistics that are being used in decision-making.
Among the decisions included the use of data to speed up the delivery of services via computerization of the systems.
In line with the modernization of the systems, the city government got a PHP200 million grant from the Office of the President to set up the incident command center of Baguio.
The center will afford government new tools to improve public services such as crime-fighting, traffic situations, and emergency response.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong said the construction of the center is expected to start before the end of this year. It will take about four months to be finished. **PNA
