DSWD-7 launches ‘Listahan 3’

CEBU, Philippines —  The Department of Social Welfare and Development-7 has officially launched Thursday the Listahanan 3 in Central Visayas.

DSWD-7 regional director Shalaine Lucero, in a press conference, yesterday said that under Listahanan 3, there are 5,599,091 poor households were identified in the country and out of this number, 453,961 poor households are located in Central Visayas.

Of the 453,961 poor households in Region-7, Cebu has 220,112; Negros Oriental has 146,669; Bohol has 84,343; and Siquijor has 2,837.

Donald Rey Dejacto, DSWD-7 regional information technology officer, said that it is expected that Cebu has more poor households as compared to other provinces in Central Visayas since it also has a much bigger population.

The Listahanan or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) is an administrative tool that identifies who and where poor households are in the country.

The DSWD has enumerated all households in rural-classified barangays and pockets of poverty in urban-classified barangays.

“The household was assessed based on their composition, the household members’ highest educational attainment and occupation, features of the housing structure and access to basic services or facilities like water, electricity, and sanitary toilet, households’ ownership of assets, tenure status of housing among others,” said Lucero.

She added that all collected information from the household went through a process using a scientific method called Proxy Means Test or PMT.

The PMT is a statistical model that estimates the income of a household based on the variables included in the household assessment form.

Households with estimated incomes that are above the latest provincial poverty thresholds are considered non-poor and those with estimated incomes falling below the poverty thresholds are considered poor.

While the Listahanan can generate statistics on the targeted poor households and families, Lucero clarified it does not provide the official poverty statistics.

The official poverty statistics is released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), which provides data on poverty and subsistence incidences based on poverty and food thresholds.

Lucero added that the poor ultimately benefit from the use of Listahanan as the database of poor households is used by government agencies and organizations that deliver social protection programs and services.

Among the objectives of Listahanan includes formulation of a uniform set of criteria for identifying poor families in the country through scientific means; maximize the benefits of social protection programs by developing evidenced-based services for the poor; minimize wastage of resources by ensuring that only those who are deserving benefit from social protection programs; and facilitate sharing of the high quality database to public and social protection stakeholders.

She said that data users who wanted to have access with the Listahanan will just have to enter a memorandum of agreement with them and will be provided to them for free.

The Listahan’s data are protected under a MOA which ensures that the data will be used only for its intended purposes. This is also in consonance with the Data Privacy Act of 2012, which intends to protect the integrity and security of personal and sensitive information of the households.

With the theme, “Bawat Bahay Magkakasama sa Kaunlaran,” Listahanan database can be shared to different national government agencies, local government units, and other organizations/stakeholders which implement social protection programs and services.

This is the third time the Listahanan household assessment has been conducted. The first Listahanan household assessment was conducted in 2009 and the second household assessment was in 2015.

The national government programs that currently provide services to the Listahanan-identified poor households include the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or the Philippine conditional cash transfer program, PhilHealth indigent program, Sustainable Livelihood Program and the Social Pension for the Indigent Senior Citizens Program.

The launching was attended by various National Government Agencies (NGAs), District Representatives, Provincial Local Government Units (PLGUs), Local Government Units (LGUs) and partner Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). — GMR (FREEMAN)