Geotagging, listing of marine fish landing centers near completion

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Guimaras Provincial Statistical Office is currently conducting the geotagging and 2021 Listing of Marine Fish Landing Centers (MFLC) in the island province.

The agency has completed 89.81 percent of the geotagging and 55 percent for the MFLC listing, as of September 20, 2021.

The geotagging of Marine Fish Landing Centers started on August 24 while the listing was in full swing on September 1. Both are expected to finish by end of September 2021.

“The survey aimed at developing a statistical frame with the updated list to come up with a more reliable and timely sampling frame for commercial and municipal fisheries surveys,” Provincial Statistics Officer Nelida B. Losare said.

Losare highlighted that the survey aims to generate a sampling frame for the conduct of quarterly commercial and municipal fisheries based on the type of landing centers, average daily unloading, peak unloading time, and peak and lean unloading months.

“The activity will involve the listing of commercial and municipal fisheries landing centers in the province that are currently operational, and the geotagging of operational and temporarily closed fish landing centers,” she said.

The activity covers all the five municipalities of Guimaras province using a Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI). Enumerators worked on a handheld tablet device for the interview with questionnaires converted into digital format.

In areas where the use of tablet device may endanger the life of the enumerator (EN) or of team supervisor (TS), the listing and interview may be done using paper and pencil interview (PAPI) technique and will be encoded in the tablet.

PSA-Guimaras hired four (4) enumerators to conduct the listing/enumeration, one (1) team supervisor to geotag all fish landing centers and one (1) Assistant Statistician to monitor the progress of the landing center operation in the province, check for data files and generating error list per municipality and perform administrative activities relative to the listing of marine fish landing centers.

“The strict border restrictions and surgical lockdowns of some barangays hampered the operations of the enumeration and the geotagging of the Municipal Fish Landing Centers in Guimaras, but we are determined to accomplish both the geotagging and the enumeration/listing of MFLC at the end of the month which may be attainable with the help, cooperation and support of the fisherfolks and the general public,” Losare said