As the lead agency that promotes and protects the welfare of the poor, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) encourages the Local Government Units (LGUs) in Zamboanga Peninsula to utilize the former’s database of poor households produced by the Listahanan, an information management system that determines who and where the poor are in the region.

The database contains vital information that will help social protection stakeholders in planning up their projects, programs and services that will be targeted and provided to identified genuinely poor families.

Staff from the regional office of the DSWD shall be visiting the provincial offices of local government in the second quarter of the year to personally discuss the utilization processes and requirements.

It can be recalled that the DSWD-Listahanan conducted a nationwide household assessment last 2015 of which result was released last year. A study on the Data Privacy Act was done shortly after the database was disclosed to public which prompted the DSWD to send a moratorium on the suspension of the utilization of database. This is to secure that the personal information of the target beneficiaries will not be used in and for any unscrupulous business.

Early this year, the moratorium was already lifted hence the information of the poor households is readily available for utilization.

Guidelines that will be included in the Memorandum of Agreement are still on its finalization stage nonetheless statistics of poor can now be requested from the DSWD.

The utilization of the database will be beneficial to the requesting party in ensuring objective identification of beneficiaries and upholding transparency in their projects and services.

The DSWD would like to emphasize that the database is given to the requesting party without any charges or fee.