Taking the lead in this year’s National Statistics Month, the DSWD Field Office Eight under Regional Director Leticia Diokno, launched October 5 the National Household Targeting for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) database at the Robinson’s Place in Tacloban City.

Diokno bared that the said statistical information is now the official data to be used by all government agencies and other stakeholders in targeting the poor for their social protection programs.   For Region Eight, there are 335, 208 households identified as poor, based on the NHTS-PR results.

At the two-day Statistical Exhibit held October 5 to 6 at the Robinson’s Place, the Field Office has set up ten laptop computers for the public to use. The available NHTS-PR database include number of poor households with access to potable water, number of poor households with varied types of toilet, number of poor households with electricity, and number of poor households with primary occupation.

Meanwhile, Technical Assistance Division Chief Yvonne Abonales reported that the agency will soon conduct an enumeration of indigenous peoples in the region, such that it will then be included in the NHTS-PR database. Hence, it will be hiring enumerators and encoders for such.

As of to date, the DSWD’s PANTAWID PAMILYA and SOCIAL PENSION for indigent senior citizens are the Department’s programs which use the data as basis for targeting.

Under the PANTAWID PAMILYA, there are a total of 188, 916 potential beneficiaries regionwide – with Leyte having the highest, reaching to 83,681, Western Samar – 54,626, Northern Samar – 38, 493, Eastern Samar – 6, 166, Biliran – 3,612, and Southern Leyte – 2, 338. However, there are only 169, 888 considered active for reasons that some were delisted due to non-registration, were part of inclusion errors, did not attend the required community assemblies, among others.

For the Social Pension program, there is a target of 11,532 qualified 77-year-old and above senior citizens coming from all over the region. Since May of 2011 to date, the Field Office has expended some Php 4,654,500.00 of Php 500.00 monthly cash grants to some 3,857 indigent elderly persons.

The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) and the Department of Health (DOH) are two of the government agencies which have entered into Memorandum of Agreements (MOA) with DSWD on the use of NHTS-PR data in the implementation of their social protection programs.