The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) urges newly-elected Local Chief Executives (LCEs) to utilize the national household targeting system in determining potential beneficiaries of the latters’ projects, programs and services. This is to ensure that identified poor families are prioritized in the provision of social protection services.

Through the Listahanan project, an information management system under the DSWD, the LCEs would be able to cluster their beneficiaries according to its specific target sector, age, location, etc. This means interventions will be more responsive and effective to the disadvantaged and vulnerable sectors who in need the most.

In Region 9, out of the 704,872 households that were assessed, 1.9 million individuals were identified as poor by the Listahanan. Zamboanga del Sur was noted with the highest number peaking at 881,189 which includes the poor individuals in Zamboanga City. This is followed by Zamboanga del Norte with 620,678 poor individuals and Zamboanga Sibugay having 364,491. Meanwhile, Isabela City has 58,478 poor individuals as shown in the Listahanan database.

LCEs are encouraged to enter into memorandum of agreement with the DSWD-Listahanan for data-sharing. The database of poor families/individuals makes available to stakeholders such as the Local Government Units as reference in developing social protection programs and identifying its beneficiaries.

The regional profile of the poor households will officially be launched in Zamboanga City next month.