Ferliza C. Contratsta
CEBU CITY, June 27 (PIA) – The Listahanan
database show that over 60,000 households in Central Visayas are no longer
identified as poor.
This was revealed in the recent launching of the
2015 Listahanan Database of Poor in Central Visayas attended by officials
and representatives of different local government units and national government
agencies here.
Dr. Dennis Mapa, dean of the University of the
Philippines School of Statistics, said there are now more than 61,000
households who were included in the first survey in 2009 but are no longer
included in the list of identified poor in 2015.
Mapa, who has been the consultant at the start
of Listahanan, said there were over 800,000 households who were surveyed
in 2009 and 314,000 plus were identified as poor in 2009. This figure
still includes the province of Negros Oriental.
In the recent Listahanan, however, Mapa noted an
increase in the number of identified poor at 385,534 out of 843,275,
which now excludes figures from Negros Oriental.
He explained there are four reasons behind the
increase of households based on the Family Assessment Form (FAS).
This can be due to the expanded coverage of
assessed households, increase in the population since 2009, shocks
experienced by the households, and the use of a survey instrument which is
more biased to the poor.
“The shocks experienced include the calamities
experienced by the households including earthquake and typhoon Yolanda,” Mapa
said.
The instrument used is Proxy Means Tests (PMT)
which has only a 6.9 error rate compared with the 20 percent error in 2009.
Grace Subong, Listahanan deputy regional
manager, said there were eight characteristics asked in indicating a poor
household in the four-page FAS.
These include type of tenurial status, type of
house, roof material, outer wall material, access to electricity, water supply,
toilet facility and top three major assets.
Cebu has the majority of identified poor with
279,110 out of the 576,161 households assessed, followed by Bohol
with 99,993 out of the 246,631, and then Siquijor with 6,431 out of
the assessed 20,483.
The top 10 concentration of poor households are
mostly in Cebu Province with only the Municipality of Ubay in Bohol included at
the bottom.
The rest include Cebu City, Lapulapu City,
Toledo City, Danao City, Naga City, Carcar City, Municipalities of
Daanbantayan, Bantayan, and Tuburan.
Rosa Hubahib, representing National Economic and
Development Administration (NEDA) Regional Director Efren
Carreon, said the Listahanan is accurate and essential in the coming
up of evidence based decision.
The PMT methodology, she said, is more
convincing and has lesser occurrence of errors.
“This will be a strong basis for stakeholders in
the crafting of plans directly to target beneficiaries,” Hubahib said.
Listahanan used to be called as the National
Housing Targeting System for Poverty Reduction.
It is a database to be used for targeting of
beneficiaries of social programs. (rmn/fcc/PIA7-Cebu)