Strict process to be observed in survey

CEBU, Philippines - A rigorous process will be observed by the Department of Social Welfare and Development in the second round of its poor household assessment in Central Visayas on September.

Kerwin Macopia, DSWD-7 information officer, said the the newly assessed households will go through Proxy Means Test (PMT) for poor and non-poor identification. PMT is a statistical formula that estimates the income of households based on the proxy variables included in the household assessment form.

Macopia said that this stringent process aims to ensure the integrity of the database before sharing it to other government agencies and social protection stakeholders.

DSWD-7 director Mercedita Jabagat said in a statement that there are 1,016,269 target households to be assessed in Central Visayas. With the huge number, DSWD is now hiring 3,357 field staff to conduct the survey.

These include 85 area coordinators, 432 area supervisors, 2,117 enumerators, 300 verifiers and 423 encoders.

Macopia said that to be an area coordinator and area supervisor one must be a bachelor’s degree holder preferably any course in Social Science, one must have at least one year experience in a supervisory role, must have good communication and interviewing skills, must be good in conflict resolution and mediation work and should be computer literate.

For enumerators, on the other hand, one must have at least two years of college education, must have good communication and interviewing skills, physically healthy, willing to travel to far flung barangays and must be computer literate especially on android applications.

To qualify to be an encoder and verifier, one must have at least two years of college education, must be computer literate and has an encoding speed of at least 35 words per minute.

Macopia said that interested applicants may personally submit their application letter, comprehensive resume with a 2x2 recent ID picture and a photocopy of transcript of records (TOR) to their City or Municipal Social Welfare and Development Offices where the applicant resides.  Deadline for submission of applications will be on July 26, 2013.

The newly hired field staff will go through an intensive training starting August before they will be deployed to their designated areas for the actual assessment conduct on September.

NHTS-PR assessment is conducted every four years. It is an information management system that identifies who and where poor households are in the country.  (FREEMAN)