The Department of Social Welfare and Development through the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTSPR) or Listahanan has finally launched the database of poor households in Northern Mindanao last July 22,2016.
It was participated in by Planning Officers , Local Social Welfare Officers, and some Local Chief Executives from the five provinces of the region.
Testimonials on how the old database was utilized (particularly in the implementation of their various social protection programs and services) were also shared by the Local Government Unit of El Salvador City and one of the active partners of the Department , the Safer River, Life Saver Fouindation Inc.
Assistant Regional Director for Operations, Aldersey dela Cruz , presented the Profile of the Poor in the Region while Innovations and Results for Listahanan 2 was also presented by Director Rhodora Alday of the Policy Development & Planning Bureau of the DSWD Central Office.
Assistant Secretary Noel Macalalad , who was the Keynote speaker for the said launching, stressed to the participants the importance of figures and number of beneficiaries served by the partner stakeholders as proof of the credibility of the Listahanan data in identifying direct and concrete beneficiaries.
In Northern Mindanao, the province of Bukidnon has the highest number of poor households totalling to 166,160 households . Lanao del Norte ranked the second with 126,949 poor households . Third on rank is the province of Misamis Oriental with 124,737 poor households.
Listahanan, also known as the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTSPR) was established by the Department of Social Welfare and Development to target who and where the poor are. The comprehensive database serves as a basis for selecting beneficiaries of social protection programs and services in the country.
Results from the second round assessment conducted in 2015 identified 485,539 poor households out of the 870,198 households assessed.
Written by Mitzie S. Santiago, DSWD