Belmonte: PSA 2020 census impossible

MANILA, Philippines — The Quezon City government wants the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to correct its 2020 census that reported the city’s population growth at only 23,932 from 2015, citing concern over the quality of services its constituents will receive, especially the financial assistance to be allotted to residents by the national government.

Mayor Joy Belmonte said the growth reported by the PSA was “impossible” based on the findings of the city’s Civil Registry Department.

The PSA 2020 census showed that Quezon City’s population increased by only 0.17 percent annually, from 2,936,116 to 2,960,048 within a five-year period.

Belmonte said the PSA figures mean that some barangays lost 50 percent of their population, which does not reflect the city’s own records.

The Civil Registry recorded about 333,468 registered births and 115,810 deaths from 2015 to 2020.

“This is very far from the 2015 projections for 2020 by statisticians, that our city’s population will increase by 1.17 percent per year or to 3.112 million,” Belmonte said.

“Even if you subtract the deaths, we have a difference of more than 200,000. That’s why the question here is: where did the PSA get its numbers?” she added.

Belmonte said there have been no recorded mass exodus of citizens from the city in the last five years.

“There is a need to be accurate with population reports,” Belmonte said, adding that inaccuracies would affect the quality of the service the local government offers to the residents.

She called on PSA evaluators to coordinate the census with barangay officials.

“The buildings and houses are still there and there are ongoing constructions. It’s unrealistic that up to 54 percent of the population vanished. And this happened in not just one barangay but multiple villages,” Belmonte said.

Some city hall officials said their places of residence were not surveyed.

Belmonte appealed to Congress to help the city “get to the bottom of this mystery.”