BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera Regional Statistical Committee (RSC) tackled updates on major statistical reports during its 3rd Quarter meeting on October 13, 2022. These include the 2nd Quarter Regional Economic Situationer, Updates on the Sustainable Development Goals, Environmental and Tourism Statistics, CAR Citizen-generated data, Provincial Product Accounts (PPAs), CAR Core Regional Indicator System, and Community-based Monitoring Systems (CBMS).
Chief Statistician Aldrin Federico R. Bahit, Jr. of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA-CAR) shared that, “Some of these are RSC’s initiatives which, to date, only CAR has generated. These are posted on the PSA website, making the data accessible to members and the public for their work on strategy and policy formulation.”
Committee Chairperson, Dir. Susan A. Sumbeling of Cordillera office of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA-CAR) underscored the need to address the challenges besetting the projects.
Citing the Provincial Product Accounts, she instructed the Secretariat to bring on board the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Bureau of Local Government Finance (BLGF) to provide the data, particularly for Abra. Among the provinces, Abra has incomplete product accounts. “Of the 27 Abra municipalities, only six have data on revenue generation.
Not only do we measure the province’s economy but we could also address development inequality by prioritizing programs and projects to the provinces through these product accounts,” Director Sumbeling said.
The Committee approved three resolutions covering the creation of a regional task force expected to prepare the Environment and Natural Resources Accounting Project on energy flow and solid waste accounts, the 33rd National Statistics Month (NSM) Regional Calendar, and reconstitution of the Provincial and City Statistics Committees in the region to strengthen local statistical planning.
Upcoming activities of the Committee include the NSM closing program on October 28 which is sponsored by the CAR Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, 2nd PSA Quiz Bee on December 7, and the 26th Philippine Statistics Quiz – a nationwide annual contest for students. Director Sumbeling tasked the CHED-CAR to disseminate these activities to the higher education institutions.
The RSC is a support committee of the Cordillera Regional Development Council with NEDA Director Sumbeling as Chairperson and PSA Regional Director Villafe Alibuyog as Vice-Chairperson. By Virginia L. Anceno