The CES is a household-based survey on the consumers’ assessment of their family income, financial situation, and the economic condition of the country. It is administered on a sample basis at the household level drawn through a stratified multi-stage random sampling with a total sample of about 5,000 households. The CES is a complementary survey to the Business Expectations Survey (BES) of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

The goal of CES is to measure consumer’s sentiments on three areas: 1) Family financial situation; 2) Family income; 3) Economic condition of the country.

CES is a joint undertaking between the PSA and the BSP and is conducted on a quarterly basis. The PSA’s responsibility is to undertake the data collection and encoding of the questionnaires while generation of tables and analysis of the results will be done by the BSP. The April 2020 Round was not conducted due to the movement restrictions pose by the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

The PSA appeals to the public to actively participate in the conduct of the said surveys by providing truthful, complete and accurate information that will ultimately serve as vital input in evidence-based planning and decision making.

Moreover, the PSA assures its respondents that all information collected from them shall be kept confidential. Section 26 of Republic Act 10625 stipulates that individual data furnished by the respondent to statistical inquiries, surveys and censuses of the PSA shall be considered as privileged information and such shall be inadmissible as evidence in any proceedings.

The CES data collection period is scheduled on July 1 until 14th of the month.