Catching Imagined Census Data Using Small Area Assessment

Florio O. Arguillas, Cornell University
Marie Joy B. Arguillas, Cornell University

On November 23, 2009, fifty-seven (57) people were massacred in the province of Maguindanao, Philippines on their way to file the certificate of candidacy of a town vice mayor for the gubernatorial position in Maguindanao.   The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which encompasses the province of Maguindanao, is vote-rich and has a reputation for delivering votes for Administration candidates.  Motivated by the election-related violence, the ability of the ARMM to deliver votes for the Administration candidates, and its unsually high population growth rate (3.73%-- the highest in the land), the authors set out to examine ARMM's 2000 census data using small area assessment and found that data at the lowest geographic unit had been imagined to reflect more voting-age population. In most areas there were more 18 year olds than those in the younger ages. Some areas had no infants, boys, girls, adult men, and elderly population.