To continuously improve the delivery of public goods and services, the Department of Social Welfare and Development through its National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) is set to employ some enhancements in the mechanism of identifying poor households nationwide which is scheduled to be conducted in the last quarter of this year.

DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman said during a presscon that for this year’s assessment, the DSWD will use android tablets instead of paper and pencil as the primary data collection tool in urban areas. “The use of tablets as data collection tool and encoding device will minimize the risk of losing the family assessment forms (FAF) during shipment and expedite the data collection process in urban areas”. Sec. Soliman expounded. However, enumerators assigned in rural areas will still be using paper and pencil owing to the absence of internet connectivity.

 The inclusion of barangay community characteristics derived from the 2009 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) is also one of the innovations that the institution will be adopting. The CPH will be included as determinants of poverty status in the new PMT model. Among these are access to mobile phone signal, availability of commercial establishments and recreational facilities. The new PMT model will also use the non-income variables such as  housing features, family assets and access to water and sanitation facilities, and so on, which were sourced out from 2009 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES) and Labor Force Survey (LFS) as income indicators.

 NHTS-PR will also have the capability to classify occupation of family roster into 431 specific categories in accordance with the Philippine Standard Occupation Classification (PSOC).

NHTS-PR is an information management system that identifies and assesses who and where the poor are. The data which will eventually be collected will be shared with National Government Agencies and social protection stakeholders for the implementation of their social protection programs and projects.

Recruitment of Field staff 

 In the early July of this year, DSWD IX deployed 5 teams to the provinces of Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur and ARMM provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi to conduct the selection and recruitment process of NHTS-PR field workers which include Area Coordinators, Area Supervisors and Enumerators. Each province posted a significant huge number of applicants coming from various municipalities and cities. Zamboanga del Sur had accommodated roughly 3000 aspirants for 900 positions to include applicants from Zamboanga City. Zamboanga del Norte had 1500 applicants vying for 569 vacant posts, whereas Zamboanga Sibugay had  600 applicants contending for 309 vacant positions. Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi had more or less 1,800 applicants for 800 job posts.

 

 DSWD IX has been continuously going over the documents of the applicants for 3 weeks now. The tallying of scores garnered by the applicants is the most tedious process of the recruitment since it is composed of several ways of gauging the applicants’ competencies which include IQ testing, essay writing, computer literacy hands-on and panel interview, according to DSWD IX Human Resource Unit Head Fe dela Cruz. “We are so particular about every step of the way to ensure fair and objective selection of qualified workers.” dela Cruz said.

 The result of the selection process will be posted on August 30, 2013 for Region 9 at the DSWD Regional office. This will then be followed by a series of trainings and orientation before they will be deployed in different provinces, municipalities and cities all over region IX.

 In 2009, the DSWD conducted its first national household assessment where 10 million households were assessed resulting to the identification of 5.25 million poor households. This year, the department is targeting 15 million households to undergo assessment with 3-month timetable estimation for the project implementation phase.

The second nationwide assessment has a total budgetary requirement of P1.9 billion which includes the service cost of field staff, procurement of IT equipment, production of FAFs and the conduct of validation activities. NHTS-PR has also just recently came up with its new by-name, Listahanan, Talaan ng Pamilyang Nangangailangan which is set to be launched this October in celebration of the national statistics month. (#LMSM)