The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Bicol will soon release a copy of its updated database of the households in the region that are considered poor.
Connie Barrameda, DSWD-Bicol information officer for Listahanan, in a phone interview on Wednesday, said the new database is the result of the household assessment conducted under Listahanan 2019 or Listahan 3.0, covering all the rural and urban areas in the 107 municipalities, seven cities, and 3,471 barangays across the six provinces of the region.
“As of July 20, the agency has encoded 83.59 percent or 923,209 Household Assessment Forms (HAFs) out of the 1,104,325 assessed in the region. The HAF is a two-page form with 50 indicators designed to collect data from households that include socio-economic information,” she said.
Barrameda added that the database includes information that could serve as relevant basis in identifying the right beneficiaries.
In a separate interview, DSWD-Bicol Director Arnel Garcia said the continuation of Listahanan 3.0 encoding activities in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic “strictly follows health protocols that include the mandatory wearing of masks, goggles, gloves, physical distancing, proper hygiene and/or washing hands, among others”.
He said the encoding and verification is targeted for completion in August while the validation will commence in September.
“The validation phase is the quality control mechanism of Listahanan where the community is given a chance to check the initial list of poor generated before its finalization. It is in this phase where the public can contest for any incorrect or misreported information. Families who were not visited during the regular household assessment are also given the chance to appeal and be assessed,” Garcia added.
Listahanan is the DSWD’s information management system that aims to establish a database of poor households that will become beneficiaries of social protection programs. As stated in Executive Order 867, the updating of the Listahanan database of poor families shall be done every four years.
Recently, National Household Targeting Office (NHTO) Director Justin Batocabe together with Philippine Information Agency (PIA) Director General Ramon Cualoping III visited and inspected the DSWD Field Office V encoding activity at Innodata Incorporated. (PNA)
