Cebu City rushing for 2015 census
The Cebu City Census Coordinating Board is two months behind schedule for the 2015 census.
Mayor Michael Rama issued the executive order creating the board only on May 5 to support the conduct of the 2015 census of population and subsequent census.
Census guidelines, however, mandate that activities in line with the inventory of population should have started in March.
The 2015 census is scheduled to commence in August. It is conducted every five years.
Based on the timetable, coordination with local government officials, homeowner’s association, community leaders, building administrators and leaders of sectoral groups; and meeting with the city census coordinating board are to be undertaken from March to August.
The conduct of publicity and information, education and communications campaign is scheduled from March to September while determination of census headquarters, training venues and recruitment and hiring of personnel for enumeration are to take place from March to June. The training for enumeration will take place from July 20 to August 1.
The city has yet to start one activity.
Lawyer Dominic Diño, Rama’s chief-of-staff, assured that the city will do its best to “keep on track.”
“It’s not a problem because we will find ways to meet the target dates,” he said.
On December 19, 2014, the Regional Development Council-Central Visayas through the Regional Development Council asked local government units to convene their respective Local Census Coordination Boards.
The newly-created board is mandated to assist in the census operation to ensure complete coverage; provide security to census personnel and materials; and provided training storage and office spaces for the census supervisors.
The board is also responsible for promulgating the rules and procedure to facilitate the conduct of census in each barangay.
The POPCEN seeks to inventory the population of cities and barangays to collect information about the demographic, social and economic characteristics of the population.
The data will be vital in making rational plans and programs of national and sub-national levels, including redistricting and apportionment of congressional seats and other legislative entities; allocation of resources and revenues; creation of political and administrative units; determining consumer demands for various goods and services; determining supply of labor for production and distribution of goods and services; for research and in understanding the demographic trends, population and dynamics and human behavior, among others.
The board is composed of the mayor as chairperson, city school superintendent as vice chairperson and city police chief, city planning and development officer, city civil registrar, city population officer, city assessor, private sector representative, district statistics officer and executive director of the Philippine Statistics Authority (formerly the National Statistics Office), as members.