Rey Anthony H. Chiu
TAGBILARAN CITY,
October 20 (PIA)-- The Department of Social Welfare and Development
(DSWD) had already posted the results of the 'Listahan' project in every
barangay hall in Bohol and it urges Boholanos to check and validate these
records to get people who are really in need economically to be in the list.
At the Kapihan sa PIA
recently, Ruben Boybanting of DSWD said the community is given some
ten days to take a look at the list, check on the names and see if those
listed are really those needing help.
Simultaneously, area coordinators
shall make all the efforts to announce the list and their posting, do recoreda
or bandillo and posts notices in public gatherings to sufficiently inform
the people of the list for verification, Boybanting added.
DSWD information officer Kerwin
Macopia explains that this is formerly known as the National Household
Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR). It is an
information management system that keeps data on the country's poverty and is
the basis for the identification of the beneficiaries of the Pantawid
Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4PS).
Putting a face to whom the National
Statistical Data Board picked as among the country's needing the most immediate
help, the NHTS-PR now morphs into the "Listahanan," or the
updated NHTS-PR verified by field enumerators that scoured the country's poor,
Macopia added.
Learning lessons from exclusion and
inclusion errors of the previous enumerations, the DSWD now attempts and ask
the people to help in verifying and cleaning up the list.
Macopia added, we have just done
saturation drives in the rural areas while for urban barangays, seeking out
pockets poverty is the mandate. He means enumerators personally visit
houses and see for themselves the conditions to get to the 232,625
households which the government eyes to reach.
Those who are not in the list and
think they must be there must come out, DSWD through Macopia called. The
DSWD has ready area supervisors to assist the real poor to be in the list,
he added enumerating that exclusion might happen when the enumerators could not
find a right source during enumeration.
Now that the list is there, "we
wish people to help us identify those included and those excluded so the area
supervisors can fill up inclusion or exclusion forms for determination by the
local committee," Macopia added.
The local verification committee
is composed of the mayor, municipal social welfare and development
officer, planning and development officer as well as two designated
representatives by the LGU that sit and try to answer complains as well
as weight on those needing to get into the list, the DSWD added.
The DSWD hopes the LVC would
complete the remaining 12,000 families which need to be in the list but were
not seen by the enumerators. There is still a remaining 5% of target which the
LVC can get to.
We still need to get to 5% of the
target families to be able to get to the poorest and guide them out of poverty,
adds Ruben Boybanting of the DSWD. (mbcn/rac/PIA7-Bohol)