Case Study - Philippines Metagora Pilot Project CHAPTER 3: DEVELOPMENT OF THE SURVEY PLAN (SURVEY DESIGN) (page 1)
3.1 OVERALL SURVEY DESIGN
The National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) was responsible for developing and implementing the statistical design of a pilot survey of a subset of the indigenous peoples (IPs) in the Philippines. This was done with assistance from the National Statistics Office (NSO). The CHRP and the NCIP also helped to conceive the design and provided information on human rights issues and on indigenous peoples. The conceptual framework was developed in consultation with other partner organisations from academia and NGOs, and was later validated with stakeholders from the IP communities. This provided the basis for the statistical framework that defined the indicators to be developed and statistical analysis to be done. The development of the survey involved: overall survey design, questionnaire development, translation, pre-testing, development of a manual for interviewers, training of interviewers, data collection, and data-processing and analysis.
The NSCB was responsible for the overall survey design, including the sampling methodology, questionnaire development, pre-testing, and data-processing and analysis. The NSO also provided the expertise in the organising and supervising data collection. The NSO also selected the sample households based on the sampling methodology determined by the NSCB. The NCIP coordinated and supervised the translation of the questionnaire, and provided support in the coordination with IP communities.
During the initial phases of the project, the pilot survey was envisioned to be undertaken in three northern administrative regions of the Philippines, namely, Region I, Region II, and the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR). As the major partners gained more insights on the rights of IPs, the geographic coverage of the survey evolved into that of the ancestral domains of the three selected tribes of IPs: the Bago Tribe in Region I, the Bugkalot/Ilongot Tribe in Regions II and III, and the Kankanaey Tribe in CAR.
The pilot survey was targeted to cover only 750 sample IP households. It was administered through face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire translated into the local dialect.
3.2 QUESTIONNAIRE DEVELOPMENT
To develop the questionnaire and disseminate knowledge about issues of human rights and indigenous peoples, an orientation workshop on human rights and on indigenous peoples was conducted in June 2004. All partner agencies attended, except for the NSO which had not yet been brought into the project. The workshop outputs consisted of a statement of survey objectives, a draft conceptual framework, and commitments to submit proposed questions for the preparation of the initial draft questionnaire. The problems and issues raised during the Consultative Workshop with IPs, previously held in Baguio City, were also considered in identifying the focus of the survey questionnaire.
Subsequent activities among the NSCB Project Staff included: brainstorming and discussions of the proposed approach in the design of the questionnaire and drafting of the questionnaire. The draft questionnaire was subjected to rigorous scrutiny by Metagora partners, by Ms. Jana Asher, the Metagora Consultant, by IP organisations, NGOs, Local Government Units (LGUs) and local IPs during the Technical Consultation on Survey Questionnaire and Survey Design (held in Baguio City in September 2004), and by members of the Project's Implementing Group of Experts (IGE). The questionnaire underwent a series of revisions, the latest of which resulted from feedback from the NSO field staff during the Trainers’ Training for Data Collection.
The questionnaire featured a series of vignettes/stories formulated and simplified to adapt to the IPs' level of understanding of their rights.
The final questionnaire consisted of eight parts (excluding the cover page, which presents the objectives of the survey and identifies particulars of the household), namely:
- Socio-demographic profile of IP households;
- Perceptions and awareness of the rights to ancestral domains and lands;
- Realisation of the rights of IPs on ancestral domain and lands;
- Duties and obligations of IPs;
- Violations of IPs’ rights;
- Mechanisms for grievance and redress;
- Customary laws and practices; and
- Measures to protect IPs’ rights.
It includes 78 questions containing approximately 197 data items.
3.3 TRANSLATIONS
The questionnaires, developed initially in English, were translated into the local dialects, namely, Ilocano (for the Bago Tribe), Bugkalot/Ilongot and Kankanaey. Because of their direct involvement with IPs in all matters concerning their political and socio-cultural life, the NCIP had overall responsibility for the translations. The translators, whose first language was the target language, were selected from local tribes.
The questionnaire was first translated to the vernacular, then back-translated to English. The resulting original and back-translated English versions were then reviewed for accuracy of the translation.
| 
