CATIGBIAN-Barangay captains and secretaries of the 22 barangays here attended a symposium on civil registration at the Municipal Conference Hall spearheaded by the National Statistics Office (NSO) in coordination with the Local Civil Registrar, and the local government unit. The one-day symposium oriented barangay officials on the Barangay Civil Registration System and institutionalized the program to the grassroots to raise the awareness among barangay folk on the importance of civil registration. It also addressed many barriers like distance which eventually caused delay in registering births, deaths and marriage, and to reduce cases of unregistered children in the barangays. Resource speakers from NSO-Bohol were Provincial Statistics Officer Jessamyn Anne Alcazaren, and Statistical Coordination Officers Glenda Escabusa and Jocelyn Sarmiento, and Statistical Officer Felixberto Sato Jr. of NSO-7 regional office. They discussed the proper implementation of Republic Act 3753 or the Civil Registry Law, the results of 2007 Census of Population and Overview of Barangay Registration System.

This town is the first BREQS User in Bohol that offers offline issuance of NSO authenticated birth, death, marriage certificates and CENOMAR. According to Local Civil Registrar Emerlita Maglajos, “with the institutionalization of barangay civil registration system, every resident can be accounted for and can be a ready reference for all development programs in the community”. “Through this system, the bulk of corrections of registry entries like misspelled names, family names, incorrect dates of birth and other errors can now be lessened or even eliminated,” she added.