13 September 2024 – GUIMARAS. Assistant National Statistician (ANS) Kristine Joy S. Briones of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Community-Based Statistics Service (CBSS), Central Office, conducted an official field visit to oversee the 2024 Census of Population and Community-Based Monitoring System (POPCEN-CBMS) operations in Guimaras Province on September 9, 2024.

“The visit focused on assessing the household data collection and geotagging processes, ensuring the accuracy and efficiency of the census activities in the area”, Provincial Statistics Office Nelida B. Losare said.

Prior to the field supervision, ANS Briones convened with team supervisors and census area supervisors from PSA Guimaras to discuss updates on the operations, challenges encountered, and strategies to achieve the target workload and fully enumerate all households in the province by 30 September 2024.

ANS Briones commended the POPCEN-CBMS team for covering 77.54% of the total households in the province as of the first week of September 2024, surpassing the national average, emphasizing the vital role of the enumerators in the success of the operations, and expressing her gratitude to all field personnel for their dedication, despite inclement weather, health risks, and other challenges affecting the enumeration process.

Key issues discussed during the meeting included the timely release of wages and boundary conflicts encountered in some areas of the province.

The special meeting was attended by PSA Guimaras personnel, including POPCEN-CBMS focal persons and head census area supervisors, led by the PSO Losare and the hired census and team supervisors.

“Region and central office staff also accompanied ANS Briones during her visit to Guimaras”, Losare said.

Following the discussions, ANS Briones and her team proceeded to Brgy. Sta. Teresa, Jordan for field supervision.

Losare expounded that one of the quality assurance mechanisms employed during field supervision was spot-checking or reinterviewing households to ensure the quality, reliability, and accuracy of the data collected by field enumerators.

“During the field visit, ANS Briones and her team conducted spot checks on randomly selected households in Sta. Teresa” Losare said.

The team reinterviewed respondents and cross-matched the data gathered with that of the enumerators.

“This supervision approach enhances the credibility of the data collection process. It helps maintain the integrity of research, which is crucial for evidence-based planning, data-driven program implementation, and impact monitoring at the local level”, Losare said.

The field visit concluded successfully, with ANS Briones stating that she would return to Guimaras for the POPCEN-CBMS data turnover ceremony, tentatively scheduled for the first semester of 2025.