How important is data?

When I began working I never realized how data was important until I was assigned in a project which would entail me to handle large amounts of data. I confess that before I was careless in a sense that I didn’t have a tracking system on how data should be kept or stored or how it should be used. There are really times that I would do poorly but not badly. So one day, I just got interested because I have to take responsibility and who wants to look bad?

Data is very important. We are a data-driven government. If we don’t present data, we don’t have budgets. No input, no output, no outcomes. And last Thursday in our travel to one of the municipalities, I had a bad experience of witnessing how three people clash because nobody could present the information that we need. It’s so frustrating to hear that they have no idea on how to do their job. There was a (usual) problem of not getting progress reports. We were there to get updates and also to visit those eight barangays to get their GPS location coordinates. So it turned out ugly because when the person in charge with the reports was confronted, he became very defensive and had so many issues and most bolted out difficulties before he can produce a report. They seem to be at odds at everything. I would be spiteful to predict that it was a “politics” thing. Maybe this would have a familiar ring to others who would have to deal with local government counterparts. They were cutting each other in-front of us. Awful anger.Tsk.tsk.tsk!

I felt there were many issues to be resolved between them. But honestly, I think they can’t resolve it. I'm pretty sure oldies would never allow a chance to let go.

Anyway, because of what happened, I’m going to speak to a bunch of report officers from their province to discuss about the importance of data or data management.