Legazpi City- The Listahanan or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development Bicol announced the completion of the second round of household assessment in the region last September 15.

According to DSWD Regional Director Arnel Garcia, a total of 1,056,722 households was assessed out of the 1,087, 720 target for Bicol region.

The result of the assessment per province is as follows, Albay 244,245, Camarines Norte 107,549, Camarines Sur 339,860, Catanduanes 47,682, Masbate 166,790 , Sorsogon 150,596 households.

“This does not include households visited, which have no qualified respondents, no respondent, or vacant at the time of visit” Garcia added

Meanwhile, for households not assessed during the regular enumeration shall be given a chance to appeal and be assessed during the validation.

This will be scheduled in October until November before the finalization of the database.

It is in validation phase where the initial list of poor is posted in strategic places in the barangays. This is to let the community validate the list since they more know their neighbors.

A Local Verification Committee (LVC) will be organized to resolve complaints and appeal received during the validation period.
The members of the LVC will include the Local Chief Executive, Municipal Social Welfare and Development Officer, Municipal Planning & Development Officer, Civil Society Organization representative and the Listahanan Area Supervisor.

Queries, appeals and complaints will be entertained 5 days after posting of the initial list of poor and will last for 15 days while resolving of complaints will be conducted in 20 days.

The agency encourages everyone to participate in the upcoming validation of poor households before they finalize the list.

“The validation is our mechanism to minimize the inclusion and exclusion error of the Proxy Means Test (PMT) that is why we need the involvement of the community because this phase is very crucial “said Garcia.

Proxy Means Test is a statistical model that approximates family income based on the observable and verifiable non-income indicators of the family’s income.

It has been found to be a good way of targeting the in large informal sectors where actual incomes are difficult to be verified.

It has been proven to be an effective targeting mechanism in countries like Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico where the informal labor market is large.

Moreover, inclusion error refers to the error when a non-poor family was classified as poor whereas exclusion error happens when a true poor household was classified as non-poor using the PMT.

Implemented regionwide, Listahanan is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are. It aims to establish a database of poor households that will become beneficiaries of social protection programs. ###