Section 1. A Bureau of the Census and Statistic 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 date
and information and to publish the same for the use of the Government
and the people;
(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.
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 provision 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.
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
|