Case Study - Philippines Metagora Pilot Project CHAPTER 3: DEVELOPMENT OF THE SURVEY PLAN (SURVEY DESIGN)
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:
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. 3.4 PRETEST The primary objective of the pretest was to determine the effectiveness and appropriateness of the translated questionnaire by way of administering it to pre-selected respondents. The NSCB, the lead agency for the pretest, prepared the design of the pretest. The participants included two interviewers and four respondents from each of the three tribes, and resource persons and observers from the central office and respective field offices of the CHRP and NCIP. The pretest was conducted in La Trinidad, Benguet on 17-18 January 2005. The NCIP was asked to select and coordinate with potential interviewers who might later be hired for the actual data collection; it also selected individuals from the three local tribes to act as sample respondents for the pretest. The programme of activities for Day One included: a project overview, a briefing on human rights and the IPRA, a brief training for the interviewers on how to conduct an interview and how to use the questionnaire, and a mock/practice interview by the interviewers with the observer-participants. The participant-respondents arrived in the venue on Day Two for the pretest interviews. The Bago and Bugkalot/Ilongots conducted the interviews in the briefing/training venue, while the Kankanaey interviewers went off-site to a nearby village where Kankanaeys reside. 3.5 SAMPLING DESIGN 3.5.1 Coverage Cost and time constraints, as well as safety concerns, prevented full coverage of all IP communities in the Philippines. The applicable IP population was therefore limited to those IPs who reside in the northern part of the country within three specific ancestral domains, as given below. In the Philippines, tribes are generally geographically placed within ancestral domains. An ancestral domain is defined as all areas, generally belonging to IPs, and comprising lands, inland waters, coastal areas and natural resources therein, held under a claim of ownership, occupied or possessed by IPs. The criteria for the selection of the ancestral domains for the PhilMetagora pilot survey were that:
3.5.2 Sampling frame and sample size The sampling frame adopted for the pilot survey was the listing of households by barangay used in the 2000 Census of Population and Housing (CPH). However, the main limitation of using the 2000 Census, aside from the fact that the numbers are not current, is that the identity of the household heads’ tribe is based on ethnicity and not on the individual’s self-ascription. The original plan to use the list of indigenous persons based on actual occupants of ancestral domains issued with Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADTs) was not pursued as the list was not available. The total sample size of 750 households for the pilot survey was pre-determined according to the following breakdown:
3.5.3 Sample Selection The households in a barangay were grouped into clusters of five. Systematic sampling was used in the selection of the clusters. All the households in the sample clusters were enumerated. In determining the sample size for each barangay, proportional allocation was used following the pre-determined sample size for each tribe. In the case of the Bugkalot/Ilongot ancestral domain, which encompasses five municipalities and a number of barangays, the sample allocation was modified. Unlike the rest of the barangays which, in their entirety, are part of the ancestral domain, only portions of the barangays in the municipalities of Kasibu, Dipaculao and Maria Aurora are part of the ancestral domain. Thus, the barangays in these three municipalities with less than 10 Bugkalot households were excluded from the survey. Due to the extreme distances and difficult terrain involved in reaching respondents, it was not feasible to revisit sampled households that were not available. Additionally, the time constraints of the survey did not allow the random selection of a replacement household within the same cluster. Therefore, for all the tribes, a 100 percent replacement list of households taken from the next cluster of households ensured replacements for sample households no longer in the area, or which refused to be interviewed. Replacement was done for the following:
3.5.4 Target Respondents The household head or any responsible member of the household was interviewed using the structured questionnaire. 3.6 PREPARATION OF INTERVIEWERS' MANUAL The Interviewers’ Manual was prepared by the NSCB Project Staff after the draft questionnaire was revised based on the results of the Technical Workshop in September 2005. With each further revision of the questionnaire, the Manual was revised accordingly. The Manual was patterned after the manuals usually prepared by the NSO for its regular survey operations. A successful survey depends not only on how the questions are formulated but also on how these questions are asked. An interviewers’ manual, which provides instructions on how to ask questions, how to handle problems that may arise during the interview, and how to correctly record answers to the questions, is thus an important tool in achieving the goals and objectives of a survey. The manual serves as useful reference for the interviewer, which he/she can consult if problems arise during fieldwork. The manual should therefore be as comprehensive as possible. In preparing the Interviewers’ Manual, consideration was given to the definition of concepts and terms that were used in the survey questionnaire and explanations on why a particular question is being asked. Other important features of the manual are:
3.7 NSCB SURVEY REVIEW AND CLEARANCE The final survey questionnaire, including the sampling design and Interviewers’ Manual, was approved and given clearance with Approval Number CHR-0504-01 expiring on 31 December 2005 through the Statistical Survey Review and Clearance System of the NSCB. The System is a coordinating mechanism instituted by the NSCB to ensure conformity of surveys conducted by the government with standard definitions, concepts and classifications, thus enhancing the comparability and accuracy of statistics generated. For further information, please refer to Appendix 3.1, Appendix 3.2, Appendix 3.3a, Appendix 3.3b, and Appendix 3.4 of this Case Study.
Return to Case Study |