Cagayan de Oro City – 266,011 poor households in Northern Mindanao were revealed to have been served with at least two social welfare and development (SWD) programs. This is according to the name-matching of program beneficiaries conducted recently by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

This number of households were higher than the expected target of 260,739 households identified through the DSWD’s Listahanan – the national targeting system utilized by the national government in identifying who and where the poor are in the Philippines.

The data shows that about 102.02% of the expected target is enjoying various social protection programs coming from DSWD, other national government agencies, and local government units. As per data generation, among the top social protection programs and services being enjoyed by the households are Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, Philhealth, Cash for Training, Sustainable Livelihood Program, Supplementary Feeding Program, Community-Driven Development, Cash for Work, and Government Internship Program (GIP).

The conduct of the name-matching was done as a step in attaining one of the strategic goals of the DSWD which is to ensure that there will be an increase of poor households identified by Listahanan by 2016. This number then should reflect that these households are enjoying the benefits of at least two social protection programs.

Written by Charmaine Tadlas, DSWD