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NEDA, PSA recommend moving national census to September due to COVID-19 —Chua


The conduct of the national census should be pushed back to the latter part of the year due to the threats of COVID-19, according to Acting Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua on Tuesday.

"I have been in discussion with the Philippine Statistics Authority and we are proposing to move the census from May to September for safety reasons," Chua said in a Senate hearing on COVID-19 updates.

He added that the census could be implemented better when it is safer for field workers to do so.

"We intend to send a letter to both Houses [of Congress] to seek your indulgence because of this very difficult time," Chua said.

President Rodrigo Duterte previously declared May 2020 as the National Census Month.

The acting chief of the National Economic and Development Authority brought up the matter during the Senate hearing after Senator Francis Tolentino asked if contact tracers can also serve as census enumerators at the same time since they will be deployed to the whole country.

The Department of Health said around P11.7 billion will be needed to hire some 130,000 contact tracers for at least three months. — BM, GMA News

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