The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Regional Office IX has revealed that a total of 4,035 enumerators will be conducting the upcoming Census of Population and Housing (CPH) 2020 scheduled from September 1 to September 29 for the entire Zamboanga Peninsula.
Condrad Sontillano, PSA IX, chief statistical specialist told RPN DXXX Zamboanga, in terms of enumerators, who are the personnel actually interviewing households 1, 349 for Zamboanga Del Norte, 1, 049 for Zamboanga Del Sur, 688 for Zamboanga Sibugay, and for Zamboanga City 949 enumerators.
The office is now in the last few days of the training so that the enumerators will know the proper approaches in getting complete and accurate data.
The method of collecting data will be paper and pencil method. The usual way is for the enumerator to ask the head of the household or a responsible person the questions and the enumerators will take note of the responses and write them in the appropriate forms.
These forms are consisting of six to eight pages and each household can take anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes to finish. Some questions to be expected are name, age, sex, marital status, religious affiliation, ethnicity, literacy, education, is the house owned or rented, and other questions.
Sontillano assured, no one gets left behind, they will count even the homeless people living in the streets. As this data is needed by the government and other stakeholders.
These enumerators were also trained to follow health protocol to assure the safety of everyone.
The 2020 CPH has the theme Sama na, Census na! being conducted every five years.
The census was supposed to be scheduled last May 1, 2020 but was postponed brought about by the pandemic Coronavirus Disease 2019.
The census is designed to take an inventory of the total population and housing units in the Philippines and to collect information about their characteristics.
These data are being used by the government, academe, business, health sector, and others in planning.
He is asking for the support of everyone and not to worry about the information given as these will be confidential. (R.G. Antonet A. Go)
(Source: Interview with Condrad Sontillano, PSA IX, Chief Statistical Specialist)