Legazpi City- The Department of Social Welfare and Development Bicol through the Listahanan is about to end the second round of household assessment this week.

“A total of 1,050,656 or 97% households were already assessed by the agency,” said DSWD Regional Director Arnel B. Garcia.

This is out of the region’s target of 1, 087, 720 households comprised of 767,252 rural and 320, 468 urban.

According to Garcia, the provinces of Catanduanes, Albay, Camarines Sur,Sorsogon and Camarines Norte were completed except for Masbate.

Listahanan is being implemented in the 107 municipalities, 7 cities and 3,471 barangays in Bicol region.

The validation and finalization phase will start this October wherein the initial list of poor families will be posted in conspicuous places in the community.

A local verification committee will be formed to receive and act on complaints and grievances relating to the issue of household eligibility.

Households not assessed during the regular enumeration shall be given a chance to appeal and be assessed during the validation.

The first round of household assessment was conducted in 2009 which resulted to the identification of 461, 242 poor households.

Meanwhile, the department clarifies misconception between the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program and the Listahanan.

“Being interviewed by an enumerator does not guarantee that the household will be automatically become beneficiary of any social protection program especially the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program,” stressed Garcia

The Listahanan identifies who and where the poor are. The identification uses specific means called the Proxy Means Test which calculates the income of households based on the verifiable and observable variables such as access to basic services and facilities like water and electricity, ownership of assets as well as materials used in housing structure.

The Listahanan’s database will be the basis of government agencies and stakeholders in identifying potential beneficiaries for their various social protection programs and services.

“The Listahanan only provides the data to the program implementers like the Pantawid Pamilya based on the requested information. “clarifies Garcia

The qualification and criteria in identifying beneficiaries is set by the program implementers. For example, to qualify for the Pantawid Pamilya, the following criteria must be satisfied to become eligible for the program:

• Must be identified as poor based on the database of the Listahanan
• Households must have children 0-18 years old and/or have a pregnant woman at the time of enumeration.
• And must be willing and able to comply with the conditionalities of the program as part of their co-responsiblities¬

Furthermore, data to be generated in Listahanan includes list of poor families segregate¬¬d by region, province, municipality/city and barangay, disaggregated data on families such as family identification, socio-economic information and family roster.###