The Department of Social Welfare and Development Bicol through its National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) or Listahanan is now preparing for the validation of 147, 846 poor households in the region next month.

According to DSWD Bicol Regional Director Arnel Garcia, the validation is in line with the implementation of the Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) Program.

“To ensure that the household beneficiaries belong to the poorest sectors, the result of the Listahanan 2 shall serve as the basis for determining potential beneficiaries by conducting a validation activity to ensure that these households will be able to receive the grant”, explained Garcia.

Garcia also clarified that the households to be validated are the Listahanan 2 identified poor in 2015 assessment that are non-Pantawid Pamilya and Social Pension beneficiaries.

The UCT is one of the social mitigating measures of the government to protect the poor, to help them cope up with the full implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Act that took effect this year.

Under the TRAIN law, the DSWD will implement the UCT scheme in three years. Program beneficiaries including Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program, Social Pension, and the validated Listahanan-identified poor households will receive cash grants amounting to Php 200.00 for each household per month this year, which will rise to PhP 300.00 in 2019-2020.

DSWD to hire 443 employees for UCT validation

Unlike the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program, which has certain conditions on health and education of children, the UCT is an outright subsidy to the poor that will alleviate the impact of the excise tax on fuel and sugar products.

In line with the forthcoming validation, the DSWD will hire 329 validators and 114 administrative aides to be deployed in the six provinces of Bicol Region.

Validators will be waged at PhP50.00 per validated form while administrative aides will receive 11,200.00 monthly.

Garcia announced that the department is now accepting applications for the said vacancies. Interested applicants may submit the documentary requirements which include the letter of intent and CS Form 212 or the Personal Data Sheet directly to DSWD Regional Office, Buraguis, Legazpi City c/o Records Section or via electronic mail to hrdu.dswdfo5@gmail.com on or before March 2, 2018.

LGU Orientation on UCT

Furthermore, the DSWD is set to conduct the orientations to the local government units to discuss matters concerning the validation before its implementation in March.

“We will closely coordinate with the LGUs and keep them involved for the smooth implementation of this validation,” said Garcia.

He also said that a new project management office for the UCT will be formed to focus on the payroll preparation and distribution of cash grants.

The DSWD aims to finish the validation process in May and targets to distribute the cash grants to the Listahanan identified poor in June 2018.

Listahanan is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are. It is a database that contains comprehensive information about poor families nationwide which serves as a basis for the identification of potential beneficiaries of social protection programs.