The Department of Social Welfare and Development conducted a three-day training for enumerators, area supervisors, and area coordinators for the conduct of the social pension validation within the whole region.
Forty seven enumerators, 10 Area Supervisors, and nine encoders participated in the said training. These 66 trained field workers will be deployed for the validation of social pensioners not included in the Listahanan database for indigent senior citizens within the region.
Social pension is one of the core programs of the Department of Social Welfare and Development and is the government’s additional assistance to 77 years old and above indigent senior citizens who will regularly receive a monthly stipend of P500 a month to augment their daily subsistence and other medical needs. Eligible to receive the monthly stipend are those who are frail,sickly or those with disabilities, those without pension, and those without permanent source of income,compensation or financial assistance from his/her relatives to support his/her basic needs. Mode of payment for the social pensioners is on a quarterly basis .
Presently a total of 15,392 indigent senior ctiizens have availed of the social pension . Unfortunately, after a cross matching by the National Household Targeting Unit and the Social Pension Unit, it was found out that only 4, 068 were included in the Listahanan database, thus, the need to validate the 11,324 .
The Listahanan or the NHTS-PR or Listahanan is an information management system that the government uses in identifying who and where the poor are in the country and is being spearheaded by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. It aims to address poverty reduction through a scientific and target- focused strategy.
Listahanan encourages National Government Agencies and other stakeholders to utilize the Listahanan data in targeting the beneficiaries of their social protection program. This can be onlybe done through an engagement with the Department of Social Welfare and Development by entering into a Memorandum of Agreement. Once a MOA has been executed, stakeholders will have access to the Listahanan data and utilize it in identifying their beneficiaries for their various programs and services.
On the said training, Ms.Morena Fernandez, Regional Head of the Policy and Plans Division of the DSWD, reminded the participants to focus and do their jobs by heart. A thorough orientation on the Family Assessment Forms (FAF) which will be used during the validation was done by the Regional Field Coordinator , Mr. Ian Putong and Ms. April Mendoza , one of the Project Coordinators from the National Listahanan Office.
The trained field workers will be deployed for the validation of Social Pensioners within the quarter.
Written by Mitzie S.Santiago ,DSWD