WHEREAS, Section 7 of Article III of the Constitution provides that “the right of the people to information on matters of public concern is recognized and that access to official records and documents, and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or decisions, as well as government research data used for policy development shall be afforded the citizen, subject to such limitations as may be provided by law”;

WHEREAS, by virtue of Executive Order Nos. 121 and 352 series of 1987 and 1996 respectively, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) designates the statistics that should be collected, compiled, processed and disseminated in accordance with the statistical calendar approved by the NSCB;

WHEREAS, Executive Order No. 135 series of 1993 provides for the establishment of a well-coordinated local level statistical system to ensure among others, the generation of reliable, credible and comparable data at the local level;

WHEREAS, NSCB Resolution No. 8 series of 1999 provides for the adoption of the General Standards on Statistical Information Dissemination (GSSID) which calls for decentralization of data dissemination in adherence to the Government Statistics Accessibility Program (GSAP) under NSCB Resolution No. 10 series of 1997;

WHEREAS, the RSCC is the policy-making body on statistics in the region and responsible in formulating programs and policies to improve the subnational statistical system consistent with the policies issued by the NSCB Executive Board;

WHEREAS, one of the standards prescribed to improve timeliness and accessibility of government information is the dissemination of an Advance Release Calendar (ARC) that allows the general data-using public ready and equal access to statistical data;

WHEREAS, ARC is a mechanism aimed at promoting transparency, timeliness and accessibility of government information by providing advance information to the public as to what and when official statistics will become available;

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED AS IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED THAT:

1. The RSCC shall formulate the corresponding guidelines to implement the GSSID to be adopted by institutions at the local level, starting with the dissemination of an Advance Release Calendar;

2. All agencies and local government units (LGUs) in the region engaged in the generation of statistical information are required to disseminate an Advance Release Calendar starting fourth quarter 2004.

   The ARC is ideally a one-year calendar containing release dates of the data and/or statistical output from January to December. Initially, for 2004, the agencies and LGUs shall start with a quarterly calendar, which shall be disseminated at least a month in advance. Dates of release, on its initial stage, may not necessarily be exact; it may have a range of days but not longer than one week. The attached format shall be used for uniformity. Starting 2005, the agencies/LGUs concerned shall disseminate its annual ARC at least one quarter in advance with exact dates of release.

3. The release of the ARC shall be via the agency website and/or through printed public announcements or press releases.
4. The agency/LGU shall submit a copy of the ARC to the NSCB Regional Division-CAR. The NSCB RD-CAR shall consolidate the submitted ARCs of the agencies/LGUs. The consolidated calendar shall be posted in the NSCB RD-CAR website and at the National Statistical Information Center (NSIC) library.
5. The regional agencies shall submit to their central offices their ARCs, copy furnished the NSCB Regional Division-CAR.
6. The agency/LGU should inform the NSCB and the users of any updates/rSeptember 4, 2012ould likewise be relayed to the public.
7. Once the data are available, the agency/LGU shall submit the data/output to the NSCB RD-CAR. This would then be the first signal of the availability of data and the starting point of monitoring. The data release shall then be recorded in the monitoring report that shall be posted in the NSCB RD-CAR website.
8. The reporting of the status of the data releases vis-à-vis the ARC shall be a regular agenda in the RSCC meetings.

APPROVED, this 31st day of August 2004 in Baguio City, Philippines.

CERTIFIED TRUE AND CORRECT:

BENJAMIN Y. NAVARRO
Regional Unit Head,
NSCB RU-CAR
Secretary, RSCC-CAR

ATTESTED:

JUAN B. NGALOB
Regional Director,
NEDA-CAR
Chairman, RSCC-CAR