PUBLICATION LIFECYCLE
The Publication Process
BetterSanFernando follows an evidence-first pipeline to ensure every published statistic or record can be traced to a real public source and inspected by residents.
Public Source
Relevant public page, document, archive, or dataset published by an identifiable authority.
Verified Evidence
Source authority, identifiers, context, and supported facts are checked and recorded.
Reviewed Data
Facts are normalized, relationships validated, uncertainty retained, and publication safety reviewed.
Public Export
Only approved frontend-safe fields and public source links are included in the versioned website dataset.
VERIFICATION STANDARDS
Verification Workflow
Verification is an explicit sequence of evidence and consistency checks, not an assumption of perfection. BetterSanFernando organizes verification into four distinct operational phases:
Find
Identify public sources and preserve their explicit provenance.
Locate a public source
Start with a relevant public page, document, archive, or dataset and identify who published it.
Preserve source identity
Keep the publisher, source authority, reference period, and public link attached to the record.
Verify
Extract only what the source directly establishes and validate relationships.
Extract supported facts
Record only the fields the source actually establishes; unrelated claims do not inherit its authority.
Validate relationships and totals
Check identities, references, joins, expected totals, and cross-dataset consistency before publication.
Normalize
Standardize formats consistently while leaving uncertainty and gaps visible.
Normalize without changing meaning
Represent dates, identifiers, amounts, places, and documentary states consistently while retaining their original meaning.
Keep uncertainty visible
Leave unsupported values unknown, preserve meaningful distinctions, and state the dataset’s coverage.
Publish
Export frontend-safe records and keep public verification links open.
Publish reviewed fields only
Move only approved, frontend-safe fields into a versioned public export used by the website.
Keep the trust path open
Where available, retain a public link so readers can inspect the source behind a published fact.
STANDARDIZATION SAFEGUARDS
Normalization Without Changing Meaning
Public records use differing formats, naming conventions, and documentary terminology. Normalization ensures datasets can be searched and reconciled without distorting what the source actually recorded.
Documentary State
Each state describes the strongest published documentary evidence, not physical progress on the ground.
Financial Meaning
ABC is not a winning bid, contract amount, or actual expenditure. These values describe fundamentally different stages of budgeting, procurement, and accounting and remain strictly separate.
Missing Values
An unavailable value stays absent or is presented as “Not specified.” Missing data is never coerced into a numeric zero.
Place
Missing barangay attribution is never converted into an invented location or arbitrary map coordinate.
Identifiers
Project IDs, APP codes, procurement references, PhilGEPS references, contract numbers, and source identifiers retain separate namespaces.
EVALUATION BOUNDARIES
Evidence Supports Only What It Establishes
A public record supports only the facts it directly and explicitly establishes. Extending a document’s authority to unrelated or downstream events creates misinformation.
Can Support
- •Award decision and resolution reference
- •Identity of the winning bidder
- •Award amount where explicitly stated in the document
Does Not Establish by Itself
- •Executed contract or final terms
- •Notice to Proceed
- •Physical construction start or progress
- •Financial disbursements or final payment
- •Project completion or handover
“Missing evidence is not proof that an event never happened.”
It means the current public dataset does not contain qualifying evidence for that claim. For project lifecycle, amount, identifier, linkage, geography, and missing-information rules, see the Project Data Guide.
RESPONSIBLE DISCLOSURE
Privacy and the Publication Boundary
The public website consumes only reviewed, versioned, frontend-safe exports. Research material may include raw sources, working notes, unresolved records, or information needing additional verification or privacy review. Its existence does not authorize publication.
Public Frontend Export
- • Reviewed fields with documented coverage
- • Validated relationships and joins
- • Safe public source links readers can inspect
- • Frontend-safe civic information
Not Automatically Public
- • Unresolved research or preliminary findings
- • Sensitive person-level information
- • Working notes and internal research artifacts
- • Information requiring privacy review or minimization
A publicly accessible source does not mean every field should be republished or aggregated. Person-level information may require stronger minimization, maintenance, and publication decisions. BetterSanFernando does not claim that this conservative review is a formal legal compliance program.
RELEASE CONTRACTS
Versioned Public Releases
BetterSanFernando publishes reviewed civic data through versioned public releases. Versioning makes changes traceable without implying that every release change reflects a change in the underlying City record.
Current release
Public export v0.1.0 · Source data v0.1.1
Why Versioning Matters
Validate Structure
Confirm that the website receives the fields and relationships it expects.
Reproduce Releases
Identify what information a particular public release contained.
Track Reviewed Changes
Publish updates deliberately as verified evidence improves.
Protect Field Meaning
Avoid silent changes to identifiers, relationships, or data semantics.
SCOPED BOUNDARIES
Different Domains Have Different Limits
Different civic datasets serve different public purposes and carry different limitations. Each domain answers what the current published data covers and what it does not claim.
- Domain
- Projects
Covers: A bounded infrastructure and public-works subset.
Does not claim: Lifecycle is documentary, not physical progress; no verified project point coordinates currently exist.
- Domain
- Population
Covers: The PSA 2024 POPCEN baseline.
Does not claim: Not a population projection, historical trend, or current-year local estimate.
- Domain
- Geography
Covers: City and barangay polygon geometry.
Does not claim: Derived from a community-maintained geometry source; not an official PSA shapefile.
- Domain
- Legislation
Covers: Archive coverage by document type and legislative term.
Does not claim: Absence from BetterSanFernando does not prove that a measure or resolution does not exist.
- Domain
- City offices
Covers: The current published directory is a bounded coverage.
Does not claim: Not an exhaustive or legally definitive municipal organizational chart.
- Domain
- Full Disclosure
Covers: Official DILG full disclosure portal uploads.
Does not claim: This is a bounded metadata-only export of 10 Full Disclosure Policy report records (2023-2026) with complete, documented verification already present in this repository as of 2026-09-11. It is not a complete Full Disclosure archive: the canonical inventory separately tracks approximately 200 official source records across 2020-2026, of which only these 13 have individual record-level metadata, and only 10 of those 13 have a verified official URL. No report's financial contents (amounts, line items, disbursements) are extracted, summarized, or published anywhere in this repository.
- Domain
- City Finances
Covers: Certified financial statements and aggregate audit reports.
Does not claim: City Finances is a selected set of official aggregate reports, not audited financial statements or complete City financial history. Source accounting concepts, funds, periods, cumulative treatment, accounting basis, and units remain distinct and must not be combined without explicit compatibility.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES
Data Limitations
What the Published Data Can — and Cannot — Establish
BetterSanFernando publishes bounded, source-backed civic information. Coverage and source availability differ by dataset.
Published datasets may be bounded or incomplete and may not represent every City Government activity or complete historical coverage.
Missing or unsupported fields remain unknown rather than being inferred, reconstructed, or treated as zero.
Official sources differ in availability, format, authority, and verification date.
Different datasets may describe different reference periods, and publication does not automatically establish current legal status or validity.
A record missing from BetterSanFernando does not prove that the record, event, or action never existed.
Using an official public source does not mean the City Government endorses, operates, or maintains BetterSanFernando.
For consequential decisions, inspect the linked original source and current official guidance.