DSWD initially identifies 600 thousand poor families in Central Visayas

CEBU, Philippines —  The Department of Social Welfare and Development 7 through the National Household Targeting Section (NHTS) or Listahanan Team has assessed over one million families in Central Visayas.

Listahanan is an information management system of DSWD that identifies who and where the poor are.

All encoded information in the household assessment form (HAF) is subjected to Proxy Means Test (PMT) to generate the initial list of poor households.

Out of these assessed households, more than 600,000 are identified poor on the initial list.

The initial lists of poor households were posted in the barangays for the public to check and appeal for corrections, if there are any.

So far, the NHTS in Region-7 has received 194,895 grievances.

This process of Listahanan ensures the quality of the final list of poor families.

The final list or Listahanan 3 data will be launched in the second semester of 2021 and be made available to partners and other stakeholders, who will be needing the data of poor households for their programs, services, projects, or reference for any relevant studies.

NHTS-7 head, Hillton John V. Edrial, clarified that any agency, local government unit or anyone, who wishes to have the Listahanan 3 data, must forge a memorandum of agreement with DSWD.

DSWD-7 regional director Rebecca Geamala said that the Listahanan 3 is the third cycle of the Listahanan Project where the initial list of poor gathered during the data collection phase will be posted in barangay halls to give opportunity for the people to scrutinize and correct the list.

Listahanan was launched in 2009 and under Section 2 of Executive Order 867 series of 2010 stated that DSWD shall maintain the system and serve as the repository of the data on poor households and shall update the data every four years.

EO 867 otherwise known as “Providing for the adoption of the national household targeting system for poverty reduction as the mechanism for identifying poor households who shall be recipients of social protection programs nationwide.” – GMR (FREEMAN)