MANILA, Philippines — The Quezon City government on Thursday urged the Philippine Statistics Authority to validate its 2020 census after the agency reported that the city's population rose by only 23,932 from 2015 to 2020.
PSA on its website said it found that QC's population increased from 2,936,116 in 2015 to 2,960,048 in 2020. This is equivalent to an increase of just 0.17%.
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“This is very far from the 2015 projections for 2020 by statisticians that our city’s population will increase by 1.17% or to 3.112 million,” QC Mayor Joy Belmonte is quoted as saying in the statement.
"The result of this survey is so impossible. How did it happen that our population rose by just this much, which is so far removed from the data gathered by our Civil Registry Department?" she added in Filipino.
Citing records from the City Civil Registry Department, the mayor said the city registered 333,468 and 115,810 deaths from 2015-2020. “Even if you subtract the deaths, we have a difference of more than 200,000."
Stressing the need for accuracy, Belmonte said PSA figures have an impact on services provided to residents such as badly-needed cash aid provided by both the local and national government.
"The small barangays and their residents will be affected. Their funds will be reduced but the truth is that there are many of them in the community," she said in Filipino.
Some barangays' populations 'reduced' by up to 54%
The mayor further urged PSA evaluators to work closely with barangay officials to validate the agency's report that certain barangays lost a substantial portion of their population, ranging from 30% to 54%.
"Unrealistic that up to 54% of the population vanished. And this happened in not just one barangay but multiple barangays," Belmonte said.
The city also noted reports that some barangays were unaware that PSA's evaluation had already been completed and that other officials said their communities were not surveyed.
Belmonte also asked members of Congress to look into the issue.
"We hope this disservice to the people of the city be given immediate attention," she ended. — with a report from Franco Luna
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Disclosure: Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte is a shareholder of Philstar Global Corp., which operates digital news outlet Philstar.com. This article was produced following editorial guidelines.