TAGUM CITY, Davao del Norte (PIA)--- The Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA) is encouraging local government units (LGUs) to take part in the rollout of the Community-based Monitoring System (CBMS) which been made into law by virtue of Republic Act No. 11315 or  An Act Establishing the Community-Based Monitoring System and Appropriating Funds thereof.

Guesting in the One Davao Presser on Aug. 10, Davao del Norte Chief Statistician and Provincial Officer Pepito Amoyen explained the advantages of pioneering the CBMS implementation this year saying the LGU data would soon become officially comparable with that of the province, and would become accessible across  LGUs nationwide.

Approved into law by then President Rodrigo R. Duterte (PRRD) on April 17, 2017, the CBMS Law is founded on the State policy “to free the people from poverty through policies that provide adequate social services, deliver a rising standard of living, promote full employment, and make available an improved quality of life for all”.

It is towards alleviating poverty that Section 2 of RA 11315 adopts the community­-based monitoring system “which generates updated and disaggregated data necessary in targeting beneficiaries, conducting more comprehensive poverty analysis and needs prioritization, designing appropriate policies and interventions, and monitoring impact over time.”

Amoyen explained that the CBMS is useful in development planning, in coming up with the Annual Investment Plan, and even in crafting the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP), among other statistical uses.

The CBMS implementation is led by the PSA “and once under the PSA, any data merged or coming from the CBMS, will become an official statistics,”  Amoyen said.

The CBMS questionnaire that  PSA will start to roll out this year has 18 sections with more than 300 questions “and the bottom-line objective  of CBMS is to alleviate poverty,” Amoyen explained.

“So mao na ang mga datus nga makuha nato sa (So these are the data that we can get from) CBMS from the different dimension of poverty, from education, health, economics and even the climate change nga maka apekto sa imong kahimtang ug sa  atong mga taga baryo or baryohanon (that can affect the your status and that of the people in the barangay),”Amoyen explained.  (PIA XI/ Jean Duron Abangan)