By Michael Vincent D. Cajulao
ZAMBOANGA
CITY, Oct. 1 (PIA) – The National Statistical Coordination
Board-9 (NSCB) led the official opening of the 23rd National
Statistics Month Celebration today, with hundreds of participants from
different national line agencies and schools joining the kick off ceremony at
the Ateneo de Zamboanga University.
NSCB-9 Regional Head Mewchun W.S.
Pamaran, in a training conducted last week by Department of Labor and
Employment as part of its NSM activity, expounded on the theme saying there should
be appreciation of statistics as this is a great tool used to measure the
region’s economic performance, and the whole country in general.
“Typically, for the masses,
statistics are just figures. But for us statisticians, these figures give us
different pictures and scenarios of what is happening with our economy. It
helps us measure how are our economy is faring. Thus, we need to let people
appreciate statistics more”, Pamaran said.
Pamaran also stressed the importance
of passion on the part of statisticians in doing their job.
“There is technically no room for
mistake in statistics. From data gathering to analyzing what we gathered, we
have to make sure that everything is correct otherwise, our findings are
rendered useless. When we commit mistake in data gathering, everything is
incorrect. To come up with accurate data we have to validate and clean our data
many times as possible to make sure everything is right. To do this, we should
be passionate on our job”, she said.
Not to be neglected, according to
Pamaran, is the public’s cooperation to come up with accurate and precise data
statistics.
“Unfortunately, there are people who
shun away from surveys or census conducted by us in the government. Why is this
so? Because of their lack of appreciation also on what we do. If the public do
not give honest answers our findings will also be greatly affected since we
treat data that come from them. We may not portray the true status of our
economy. It’s like a domino effect”, she said.
The month-long celebration will also
feature different line agencies’ activities to cater to the public. One of the
highlight activities is the upcoming 3rd Quarter Survey on
Agriculture and Fisheries Production in Region 9 to be conducted by the
Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) on from
October 1 to 15, and lectures on the Provincial Data Review of Agricultural
Statistics for the 3rd quarter of this year on October 11-12, and 2012 3rd
Quarter Regional data Review of Agricultural Statistics.
Other activities include information
dissemination on the different statistics pertaining to economy, health,
poverty, and program accomplishment or implementation from partner agencies.
There will also be trainings on
digital literacy for women trainers by the National Computer Council (NCC),
Techno-transfer for Balik-Pinay, Balik Hanap Buhay by the Overseas Workers
Welfare Administration-9 (OWWA), and Disaster Risk Reduction Seminar and
Earthquake Orientation and Drill by the Office of the Civil Defense-9 (OCD),
among the long list of activities.
NSCB will also spearhead a tree-planting
activity on at the Pasonanca watershed area on October 19. (JPA/MVC/PIA9-ZBST)