The Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) will begin in towns of Baras, Bato, Caramoran, Gigmoto, Panganiban, San Andres and San Miguel, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Catanduanes Provincial Statistical Office said last week.
The CBMS aims to conduct interviews in every household in the seven towns regarding their demographic and socio-economic characteristics, including the following: health, nutrition, house structure, source of potable water, sanitary facilities, education, ability to read and write, community participation, sources of livelihood, as well as security and safety in the community.
The data gathered through CBMS will be used as basis for the following: measure of the true state of livelihood in the households; allow the government to craft appropriate plans and programs to address poverty; and determine the deserving beneficiaries of the government’s social protection program.
In the municipalities included in the CBMS, 150 enumerators, 26 Team Supervisors, 11 CBMS Area Supervisors and seven Head CBMS Area Supervisors (HCAS) will roam around the visit each household in every barangay to get the required information through face-to-face interviews.
The field personnel underwent rigorous training over an eight-day period to fully understand the concept behind CBMS, proper way of conducting interviews and the use of mobile applications during the interviews.
Information will be sourced through Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) which will be done face-to-face using the Household Profile Questionnaire of the tablets.
The CBMS data collection of the PSA and the LGUs is pursuant to Republic Act No. 11315, or The Community-Based Monitoring System Act, which was signed into law last April 17, 2022 by then President Rodrigo Duterte.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has begun conducting the August 2022 Labor Force Survey (LFS) this Aug. 9 to 22, 2022, with a total of 157 sample households from seven sample barangays to be interviewed in the province by two PSA personnel from 9 to 22 August 2022.
The monthly LFS is a nationwide quarterly survey of households that gathers data on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of the population.
In November 2020, the Philippine Economic Team, which includes the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and Department of Finance (DOF) recognizes the urgent need for a high frequency statistical information on the Philippine labor market to better understand the nature of the Philippine economy over the coming months brought about by the impacts of the health crisis.
In response to this need and with the efforts to come up with accurate, reliable and timely labor and employment statistics, the PSA conducted computational exercises to explore the possibility of estimating the labor and employment statistics on a monthly basis.
The monthly LFS is an abridged version of the quarterly or the regular LFS. It will utilize the core questions of the regular LFS with additional questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic to generate the core labor and employment indicators including relevant indicators for the COVID-19 recovery program.
Results of June 2022 LFS shows that the country reported an employment rate of 94.0% which is the same to the reported employment rate in May 2022. Unemployment rate reported a 6.0% which is also the same compared to the reported unemployment rate a month ago while underemployment rate reported a decrease of 1.9% or from 14.5% in May 2022 to 12.6% in June 2022. The labor force participation rate (LFPR) in June 2022 was placed at 64.8 percent, equivalent to 49.58 million Filipinos 15 years old and over who were either employed or unemployed.
Moreover, the PSA assures its respondents that all information collected from them shall be kept strictly confidential. Section 26 of Republic Act 10625 stipulates that individual data furnished by the respondent to statistical inquiries, surveys, and censuses of the PSA shall be considered privileged information and such shall be inadmissible as evidence in any proceeding. The PSA may release data gathered from surveys and censuses only in the form of summaries or statistical tables, in which no reference to an individual, corporation, association, partnership, institution, or business enterprise shall appear.