CEBU, Philippines - In order to include more families in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the agency’s Region 7 office will conduct a special validation through its Listahanan or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR).
“Since the start of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, we have been receiving requests from various stakeholders asking to be included in the said program. However, we need to validate them through a household assessment,” said DSWD-7 regional director Mercedita Jabagat.
Requests for the assessment were coursed through the Grievance Redress System (GRS) of the 4Ps.
“Through the GRS, we were able to institutionalize a process by which complaints and queries are captured and resolved,” Jabagat said.
The GRS provides various avenues for the filing of queries and complaints.
For one, grievances may be reported through the text hotline number 0918-9122813 or through a written report addressed to the nearest DSWD Field Office.
“After the assessment, the data gathered are subjected to a Proxy Means Test (PMT) before we could identify if the household is poor or non-poor,” Jabagat emphasized.
The PMT estimates the income of the households based on the proxy variables included in the family assessment form (FAF).
A total of 10,966 households will be assessed in Central Visayas with 6,238 from Bohol, 2,799 from Cebu and 1,929 from Negros Oriental.
DSWD-7 hired 12 area supervisors and 80 enumerators to conduct the special validation.
The hired field staff underwent a rigorous training on the conduct of the special validation which includes the filling-out of the FAF. —ATO (FREEMAN)