The Department of Social Welfare and Development Regional Office 9 on Tuesday revealed that there are 229,375 Pantawid households now with improved level of well-being, which is 82% of the overall population of Pantawid beneficiaries across the region.

The said households were identified to belong in self-subsistence level after undergoing the Social Welfare and Development Indicator (SWDI) Assessment last year. This means that these beneficiaries are now exposed and can readily access to resources and alternatives provided by the government to make ends meet.

“It is inspiring to note that while most of the Pantawid families started on survival when they entered the program, on the fifth year, 82% have moved up to subsistence level, while a good number of 15% of the once identified as poorest of poor households are now with sufficient capacity to live a decent and dignified life.” DSWD 9 Regional Director Atty. Araceli Solamillo said in her opening remarks during a forum with LSWDOs on Tuesday.

 

SWDI is a tool that aims to determine the level of well-being of Pantawid beneficiaries so that appropriate interventions will be provided to them not just by DSWD, but by other social protection programs implementers as well. Through the administration of the said tool last year, the department was able to identify 6,336 Pantawid households are still in level 1 (survival level), 229,375 are in level 2 (self-subsistence level) and 43,501 are now in level 3 (self-sufficient level).

Following the SWDI result generation, DSWD now makes available the SWDI data to its partner agencies which they can use as a baseline data for planning and implementing interventions to enable beneficiaries to pass through survival, subsistence up to self-sufficient standard of living.

“The SWDI is a comprehensive assessing tool where we can identify the gaps in the services that we provide the Pantawid beneficiaries, and through identifying these gaps, we can tap or partner with other agencies that can give them the appropriate intervention, like livelihood and employment so that they can elevate further to self-sufficiency level.” Solamillo added.

Survival is a set of condition where there is lack of inner and external resources which make households unable to resolve problems and survive in a daily basis. Subsistence is a condition that opens some resources and alternatives to the beneficiaries to surpass basic needs daily, while self-sufficiency means the households have already other sources of income and can already stand without interventions from the government.