Creation of Bureau of the Census and Statistics

August 19, 1940

COMMONWEALTH ACT NO. 591

AN ACT TO CREATE A BUREAU OF THE CENSUS AND STATISTICS, TO CONSOLIDATE STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES OF THE GOVERNMENT THEREIN

SECTION 1. A Bureau of the Census and Statistics is created.

SECTION 2. The powers, functions, and duties of the Bureau of the Census and Statistics shall be as follows:

(a) To collect by enumeration, sampling or other methods, statistics and other information concerning population, agricultural conditions, the area and production of crops, the number of livestock, the production of livestock products, exports, imports, commerce, industrial and commercial enterprises, prices, employment wages, stocks of commodities, agricultural and other properties, social and economic institutions, and such other statistics as the President of the Philippines by executive order may direct;

(b) To compile and classify all such statistical data and information and to publish the same for the use of the Government and the people; EITcaH

(c) To prepare for and undertake all censuses of population, agriculture, industry and commerce;

(d) To conduct, for statistical purposes, investigations and studies of social and economic problems and conditions;

(e) To compile and classify statistical and other data for other branches and dependencies of the Government, upon the approval of the President of the Philippines;

(f) To carry out and administer the provisions of Act Numbered Thirty-seven hundred and fifty-three, entitled "An Act to Establish a Civil Register";

(g) To make and publish, from time to time, estimates of population, agricultural production, income, and number of livestock.

SECTION 3. The collection of data and information prescribed in section two may be secured by the mailing or delivery of the necessary questionnaire or form and explanatory matter to the persons best qualified to furnish such data or information and in which case the proprietor, official, Government official or employee, partner, director or legal representative to whom such questionnaire or form is mailed or delivered shall be required to accomplish such questionnaire or form personally or cause the same to be accomplished by his duly authorized agent or representative. Any person who fails or refuses to accomplish, mail or deliver such questionnaire or form received by him to the Bureau of the Census and Statistics within thirty days of its receipt by him; or any person who, in accomplishing any such questionnaire or form, knowingly gives data or information which shall prove to be materially untrue in any particular; or any person who signs such questionnaire or form after it has been accomplished in the knowledge that it is untrue in any particular shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not more than six hundred pesos or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both. CSDAIa

SECTION 4. Data furnished the Bureau of the Census and Statistics by an individual, corporation, partnership, institution or business enterprise shall not be used as evidence in any court or in any public office either as evidence for or against the individual, corporation, association, partnership, institution or business enterprise from whom such data emanates; nor shall such data or information be divulged to any person except authorized employees of the Bureau of the Census and Statistics, acting in the performance of their duties; nor shall such data be published except in the form of summaries or statistical tables in which no reference to an individual, corporation, association, partnership, institution or business enterprise shall appear. Any person violating the provisions of this section shall, upon conviction, be punished by a fine of not more than six hundred pesos or by imprisonment for not more than six months, or by both.

SECTION 5. The Bureau of the Census and Statistics shall be under the executive direction and supervision of the President of the Philippines. Such personnel as may be necessary for the proper and efficient performance of the duties prescribed by this Act shall be appointed by the President of the Philippines, upon the recommendation of the Director of the Bureau of the Census and Statistics, at such rates of salaries as may be fixed in accordance with Commonwealth Act Numbered Four hundred and two, entitled "An Act to Provide for Classification of Civilian Positions and Standardization of Salaries in the Government."

At any time after its organization, the President of the Philippines is authorized to place the Bureau of the Census and Statistics under the direct supervision and control of any of the executive departments.

SECTION 6. The Bureau of the Census and Statistics shall have one chief and one assistant chief, who shall be known respectively as the Director and Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Census and Statistics. The Director of the Bureau of the Census and Statistics shall receive the same compensation as that received by the directors of bureaus mentioned in sub-paragraph (4), subsection (a) of section five of Commonwealth Act Numbered Four hundred and two, and the Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Census and Statistics, the same compensation as that received by assistant directors of bureaus mentioned in sub-paragraph (5) of said subsection (a) of section five of the same Act. The Director and Assistant Director of the Bureau of the Census and Statistics shall be appointed by the President of the Philippines, with the consent of the Commission on Appointments of the National Assembly.

SECTION 7. The powers, functions, and duties of the Division of Statistics of the Department of Agriculture and Commerce, those of the Director of the National Library under the provisions of Act Numbered Thirty-seven hundred fifty-three, and those of the Statistics Division of the Bureau of Customs, are transferred to the Bureau of the Census and Statistics.

SECTION 8. The President of the Philippines is authorized to transfer personnel, equipment, unexpended appropriations, if any, records, documents, supplies and other property from the Commission of the Census created by Commonwealth Act Numbered One hundred and seventy to the Bureau of the Census and Statistics, upon or prior to the completion of the census taken pursuant to the provisions of Commonwealth Act Numbered One hundred and seventy.

SECTION 9. The President of the Philippines is authorized until June thirty, nineteen hundred and forty-one, the provisions of existing laws to the contrary notwithstanding, to transfer by executive order the functions, appropriations, equipment, property, records, and personnel of any bureau, office or part thereof, engaged in the collection, compilation, and publication of statistics from the different executive departments, bureaus and offices to the Bureau of the Census and Statistics, when, in his judgment, greater economy, efficiency and accuracy in the collection, compilation, and publication of statistics can be accomplished thereby. SEACTH

Any action taken by the President pursuant to this authority shall be reported by him to the National Assembly at the next regular session thereof and shall be valid and subsisting until the National Assembly shall provide otherwise.

SECTION 10. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

Approved: August 19, 1940