Bureau of Agricultural Statistics

Also known as: BAS · The DA statistics bureau · The agriculture and fisheries statistics bureau — the descriptive styling of the reference record ([Wikipedia — PSA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_Statistics_Authority "Philippine Statistics Authority — Wikipedia")) · BAEc's successor — the succession styling of this wiki's Bureau of Agricultural Economics entry

Government

Definition

The Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS) was the Department of Agriculture’s statistics bureau — the agency “mainly responsible for the collection, compilation and official release of agricultural statistics” for the twenty-six years between the Aquino reorganization and the consolidation of the national statistical system. It was created by Executive Order No. 116 (January 30, 1987), which seated it in the ministry’s Planning and Monitoring Group (Sec. 12(d)) and charged it under Section 16(c) to “exercise technical supervision over data collection centers” and to coordinate “all agricultural statistics and economic research activities of all bureaus, corporations and offices under the Ministry.” (LawPhil — EO 116) The bureau was the successor of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics — the bureau created by Republic Act No. 3627 (1963) that Presidential Decree No. 461 had carried as item (5) of the Department of Agriculture’s five bureaus — and the reference record describes BAS as “the principal government agency for the efficient collection, processing, analysis, and dissemination of official statistics on agriculture and fisheries,” established on January 30, 1987. (LawPhil — PD 461, Wikipedia — PSA)

The bureau’s register closed on September 12, 2013, when Republic Act No. 10625 — the Philippine Statistical Act of 2013, effective upon approval — provided in Section 28: “The NSO, the BAS of the Department of Agriculture, the BLES of the Department of Labor and Employment, and the NSCB shall be abolished and their appropriations, records, properties and personnel shall be transferred to the PSA.” (LawPhil — RA 10625) That transfer made the Philippine Statistics Authority — created by the same Act, “primarily responsible for all national censuses and surveys, sectoral statistics” — the sole producer of the country’s official agricultural statistics, bound to “prepare and conduct periodic censuses on population, housing, agriculture, fisheries, business, industry and other sectors of the economy.” (LawPhil — RA 10625, Wikipedia — PSA)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	N/A — no standalone article (title verified missing this session); the bureau’s record is carried within Wikipedia’s Philippine Statistics Authority article
Wikidata	N/A — entity search returns no item for the bureau (verified this session)
DBpedia	N/A — the data endpoint returns an empty resource (verified this session)
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	statistics — “A discipline, principally within applied mathematics, concerned with the systematic study of the collection, presentation, analysis, and interpretation of data” (the bureau’s product, not the bureau)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	agricultural statistics (c_49977) — the bureau’s entire mandate (verified this session)
Google Scholar	Bureau of Agricultural Statistics BAS Philippines EO 116 1987 Planning and Monitoring Group official release agricultural statistics fisheries RA 8435 AFMA National Information Network RA 10625 Philippine Statistics Authority abolition
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

BAS
The DA statistics bureau
The agriculture and fisheries statistics bureau — the descriptive styling of the reference record (Wikipedia — PSA)
BAEc’s successor — the succession styling of this wiki’s Bureau of Agricultural Economics entry

Examples and Analogies

A successor narrowed to the counting: where the Bureau of Agricultural Economics had held both the statistics and the economics research of RA 3627, EO 116’s BAS was a statistics bureau — “collection, compilation and official release” — with the economic research only coordinated, not conducted; the specialization this wiki’s Bureau of Agricultural Economics entry registers. (LawPhil — EO 116)
Release authority as identity: the load-bearing word in the mandate is “official” — one bureau to say what the agricultural numbers are, inherited from BAEc’s centralization of 1963. (LawPhil — EO 116)
Verified statutory data:
Creation: EO 116, January 30, 1987; Planning and Monitoring Group (Sec. 12(d)); functions (Sec. 16(c)) (LawPhil — EO 116)
Predecessor: Bureau of Agricultural Economics, RA 3627 (June 22, 1963), item (5) of the DA bureaus under PD 461 (Sec. 2) (LawPhil — PD 461)
Strengthening: RA 8435, the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (1997), under which BAS was made the central information source of the DA’s National Information Network (Wikipedia — PSA)
Abolition: RA 10625, approved September 12, 2013, effective upon approval (Sec. 35); Sec. 28 abolishes BAS with appropriations, records, properties, and personnel transferred to the PSA (LawPhil — RA 10625)
Successor: Philippine Statistics Authority, “primarily responsible for all national censuses and surveys, sectoral statistics” (Secs. 5–6) (LawPhil — RA 10625)

Usage Scenarios

1. Citing the Bureau’s Creation and Functions

Researchers fixing the bureau’s mandate quote EO 116’s Section 16(c) directly — the creation-era language of collection, compilation, official release, and technical supervision over data collection centers. (LawPhil — EO 116)

2. Tracing the Statistical Line of Succession

The agricultural-statistics line runs BAEc (1963) to BAS (1987) to PSA (2013) — three names, one function, the succession this wiki’s Bureau of Agricultural Economics entry documents from its end. (LawPhil — EO 116, LawPhil — RA 10625)

3. Fixing the Abolition Date

RA 10625 was approved September 12, 2013 and took effect upon approval; Section 28 is the abolition clause to cite for the bureau’s end, and the transfer clause for where its records and personnel went. (LawPhil — RA 10625)

4. Using Today’s Agricultural Statistics

The bureau’s old series now issue from the PSA — the authority bound to conduct the periodic censuses of agriculture and fisheries and the sectoral statistics of the farm economy. (LawPhil — RA 10625, Wikipedia — PSA)

Strategies

Specialize the successor narrowly: the 1987 design kept the counting and shed the economics — a statistics bureau pure, against the old bureau’s dual mandate. (LawPhil — EO 116)
Keep the coordination power: technical supervision over data collection centers preserved BAEc’s clearing-house role — the department’s numbers standardized from one point even after the split. (LawPhil — EO 116)
Strengthen by statute: AFMA’s National Information Network made BAS the DA’s central information source — a staff bureau converted into the department’s data spine. (Wikipedia — PSA)
Consolidate into one authority: RA 10625 ended the specialty-bureau model — four agencies folded into a single PSA, closing a century of fragmentation. (LawPhil — RA 10625)

Security and Safety Measures

Official-release discipline: one bureau, one voice for agricultural statistics — the mandate that kept departmental numbers from multiplying into rival series. (LawPhil — EO 116)
Whole transfer on abolition: Section 28’s clause — “appropriations, records, properties and personnel shall be transferred to the PSA” — the safeguard that the bureau’s data and staff survived the bureau’s dissolution. (LawPhil — RA 10625)
Census continuity: the PSA’s statutory duty to conduct periodic agriculture and fisheries censuses keeps the decennial accounting of the farm sector unbroken across the 2013 abolition. (LawPhil — RA 10625)
For researchers: name the era before citing — BAEc (1963–1987), BAS (1987–2013), PSA (2013– ) — and cite the bureau’s mandate to EO 116 Sec. 16(c), not to the BAEc statute; no Wikipedia article or linked-data item exists for BAS alone, a gap verified this session. (LawPhil — EO 116)

Historical Context

BAS was born in the reorganization season that followed the 1986 change of government. EO 116 of January 30, 1987 rebuilt the agriculture ministry in functional groups; the old Bureau of Agricultural Economics — the DANR’s statistics-and-economics bureau since 1963 — was not carried forward, and its statistical function passed to a new Bureau of Agricultural Statistics in the Planning and Monitoring Group. (LawPhil — EO 116, LawPhil — PD 461)

The bureau then rode the department’s modernization era: the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1997 (RA 8435) strengthened BAS as the central information source of the DA’s National Information Network, and the bureau served as the principal agency for official agriculture and fisheries statistics for over two decades — until September 12, 2013, when RA 10625 consolidated the National Statistics Office, the BAS, the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics, and the National Statistical Coordination Board into the Philippine Statistics Authority, the bureau’s records, personnel, and series passing whole into the new authority. (Wikipedia — PSA, LawPhil — RA 10625)

Challenges and Controversies

A Bureau Known by Its Bookends

Between its 1987 creation and its 2013 abolition, BAS’s own operational history is thin in the public record — no standalone reference article, no linked-data item (both verified missing this session) — so the bureau is studied through its predecessor’s entry and its successor’s releases. (Wikipedia — PSA)

Statistics Split from Economics

The 1987 design separated what RA 3627 had joined: BAS inherited the counting, while the old bureau’s economics research had no single statutory heir — the division this wiki’s Bureau of Agricultural Economics entry records from the other side. (LawPhil — EO 116)

The Twenty-Six-Year Bureau

BAS lived barely longer than the bureau it replaced — twenty-six years against BAEc’s twenty-four — and both ended in consolidation rather than scandal: the specialty bureau was an organizational fashion the statistical system tried twice before RA 10625 settled on one authority. (LawPhil — EO 116, LawPhil — RA 10625)

Data Continuity Across Abolition

The bureau’s statistical series had to survive its legal death; Section 28’s transfer of records and personnel to the PSA is the clause that carried them. (LawPhil — RA 10625)