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Field Enumerator interviews a family-respondent in Zamboanga del Norte for the 2nd round of household assessment.

ZAMBOANGA CITY –From the 688,495 estimated households in region 9, the Department of Social Welfare and Administration (DSWD), has already assessed 87% or equivalent to 602,380 households as of this writing.

By the end of August 2015, the assessment is expected to be done and initial results will become available.

“The initial results will be posted in all barangays in the entire region. The community in each barangay can check whether their household is classified as poor or non-poor,” said Deputy Regional Project Manager for Listahanan, Pilar F. Francisco.

Households with estimated incomes that are equal to and above the latest provincial poverty thresholds are considered non-poor and those with estimated incomes falling below the poverty thresholds are considered poor.

The identification of poor and non-poor households is done in an objective, systematic and transparent manner through an application called the Proxy Means Test (PMT) that is managed by the National Information Technology Office, based in the DSWD Central Office.

The PMT is a statistical model that estimates the income of a household based on the variables that are tested to be good predictors of income.

In order to secure a better targeting system, the PMT used in the 2009 household assessment was enhanced to produce accurate and reliable results.

Improvements made in the new model –such as inclusion of barangay characteristics as one of the determinants of poverty status and the installation of a 2nd stage screener to weed out possible inclusion errors – resulted to a decrease in model-based error rates, from having an inclusion and exclusion error rates of 22-35% in the 2009 model to 6.9-19.3% in the new model.

Should there be questions and complaints in the initial list of poor households, a Local Verification Committee will be formed to receive and act on complaints and appeals from the community.

“This further decreases possibility of having an inclusion and exclusion error in the database,” Francisco added.

The second round of household assessment is spearheaded by the Listahanan (formerly National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction), an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are in the country.