PSA community-based monitoring system ‘big help’: Benguet execs

BAGUIO CITY – The recently-launched community-based monitoring system (CBMS) of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) will help a lot of local government units validate the recipients of the government’s pro-poor programs, according to local officials in Benguet province on Wednesday.

Alfredo Dacumos Jr., mayor of Sablan town, said the PSA’s CMBS would make the jobs of the LGUs easier in identifying the beneficiaries of government assistance even in the far-flung areas.

“If completed, hindi na mahirapan ang officers, employees natin na mag identify kung sino ang kailangan mabigyan ng tulong o kung paano maumpisahan ang plans (the officers and our employees will not having difficulty identifying who among the residents need to be given assistance or how to implement the plans),” Dacumos said.

The PSA earlier launched the CBMS here, targeting 59 municipalities from six provinces in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) to fight poverty in the area.

Under the technology-based CBMS, PSA enumerators are tasked to get information of the household income, income sources, jobs, properties, and other pertinent data that can be used in planning, program implementation, and impact monitoring at the local level.

It also aims to empower communities to participate in the process by honesty replying to a census where a knowledgeable member of the household will need to spend at least two to three hours with an enumerator gathering the individual and household-level information.

“Talagang malaki ang tulong nitong CBMS (This CBMS will really help a lot),” Dacumos said.

He said he fully support the PSA’s program and enjoined his constituents to help the CBMS enumerators “because this survey will help not just us in our decision making, but our townmates because it will give us clear information of the household situation.”

“We want this to be successfully completed. The data from the grassroots is needed so much for sound planning,” he added.

For his part, Tublay Mayor Armando Lauro Jr. said the CMBS will really help since each household in his municipality’s eight villages are located far away from each other.

“Nagpapakahirap ang aming planning office way back 2014 para matapos ang comprehensive land use plan kaya makakatulong po ang mga datos na makukuha sa amin (our planning office is having a difficult time completing the land use plan since 2014 and the data that will be obtained in the CBMS will help a lot),” Lauro said.

He also asked his constituents to take time “because the enumerators will walk a distance to reach them, let us show our hospitality and welcome them.”

Aldrin Bahit, chief statistical specialist of PSA-CAR, earlier said the CBMS is a first-of-its-kind survey in the country that will result in transparency in the officials’ implementation of a program.

“Because we would know later on where the poor families are, it would be easy to question why an official is bringing the assistance to a place when most of those who need it are in another area,” he said.

In the CAR, he said 59 out of the 77 towns are participating in the disaggregated survey with 36 of them starting this August while 23 are having it in October.

All 27 towns of Abra, seven in Apayao, and 13 in Benguet are participating while only one of the 11 towns in Ifugao, six of the eight in Kalinga, and five of the 10 towns in Mountain Province.

Thirty-four municipalities will be funded by the PSA while the 25 are funded by the respective LGUs. (PNA)