Engineer Rolando Dimaunahan, NSO regional director, said in a press statement that the listing of households is one of the principal steps prior to the conduct of their household survey.

He said the listing primarily aims to create a frame in the selected coverage area from which sample households are to be selected for interview for household-based surveys of NSO like the Labor Force Survey.

In any survey, each sample household represents several other households in the country. If fewer or more households are listed or the wrong households are enumerated as a result of an error in the listing, the error is magnified as many times, he said.

Hence, it is extremely important that the listing is complete and accurate. Dimaunahan said.

For Eastern Visayas, the listing operation is currently being conducted in 30 cities and municipalities, that is, five municipalities in Eastern Samar, three in Northern Samar, six in Samar, four in Southern Leyte and two in Biliran province.

The listing of households is undertaken by the NSO as mandated by Commonwealth Act 591 which authorizes the then Bureau of the Census and Statistics, now NSO, "to conduct by enumeration, sampling or other methods, for statistical purposes, studies of the social and economic situation of the country" and in consonance with the provision of Executive Order No.121 which designated the NSO as the "major statistical agency responsible for generating general purpose statistics," Dimaunahan said.