Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan endorsed the plan of the Department of Agriculture to set up its own unit that will collect data distinct from numbers generated by the Philippine Statistics Authority to help the agency improve policy planning and project management.
Balisacan told a forum with economic journalists during the weekend that other government agencies should follow the DA’s lead to improve government service and operational efficiency as well as optimize the use of public funds.
He said the survey design of the PSA is meant to guide the formulation of national policy while statistics collected by implementing agencies like the DA need not be as comprehensive because “their purpose is for management.”
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. earlier announced his plan to form a division that would collect statistics to help guide the DA on how to respond to prevailing situations on the ground. He acknowledged that getting the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics back will require the amendment of the law that transferred the bureau to the PSA.
“But that does not mean that agencies like DA should stop collecting data. They should continue collecting data for purposes of their own management. They need to decide day-to-day and that is not the kind of data that the PSA collects, those are quarterly data that are nationally representative,” said Balisacan, whose department supervises the PSA.
The economic planning chief said all government agencies should collect data, not to replicate statistics from the PSA but those that are needed for better management and planning.
Balisan heads the National Economic and Development Authority, the government agency that has supervisory powers over the PSA for purposes of policy coordination. The PSA was created by a law that merged the National Statistical Coordination Board, National Statistics Office, Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics, and Bureau of Agricultural Statistics. The two bureaus were previously under the Department of Labor and Empoyment, and the DA, respectively.
