The National Household Targeting Unit (NHTU) through its Regional Field Coordinator-9 (RFC), Michael D.S. Mustafa confirmed that the current On-demand Application (ODA) in Isabela City has already assessed 610 households as of September 29.
“Out of 1,645, our field staff has already evaluated 610 households. In fact, 403 household assessment forms were already forwarded to the office for verification and encoding,” Mustafa said.
According to him, out of the 21 identified barangays in Isabela City, only six barangays remain for the said assessment.
In addition, some of their target households were no longer in the areas identified. He said, “they could have already transferred to other barangays or somewhere else.”
Meanwhile, the NHTU is expecting to finish the assessment within the week as per press time.
NHTU conducts training for ODA Field Staff
Prior to the conduct of ODA in Isabela City, Basilan and Siasi, Sulu, the NHTU headed by Mustafa and BaSulTa RFC, Ben Nasser Isnain organized a 3-day orientation and training for the field staff last September 6-8 at the Jardin de La Vińa Hotel, Zamboanga City.
The said activity served as an “opportunity” to prepare the 11 newly hired workers for deployment in the aforementioned areas. To be specific, four enumerators will be in charged of the 21 barangays (more than 1,500 households) in Isabela City, while six enumerators and one area supervisor will be assigned to approximately 2,500 households in Siasi, Sulu.
The training highlighted a comprehensive discussion of the household enumeration. A series of sessions were conducted primarily aimed at preparing the field staff in the household assessment proper.
They were also oriented on the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) or the Listahanan, its objectives, and the four phases of the targeting system. Aside from these, they were also trained on how to correctly fill-out the forms to be used in the assessment to collect the needed information of the households they will visit.
Furthermore, their roles and responsibilities were also discussed including the Data Privacy Act of 2012, the concept of the Proxy Means Test (PMT), a statistical model used by the Listahanan in estimating household income using proxy variables indicated in the assessment forms, and administrative-related concerns were also addressed by the NHTU.
What’s Next After ODA
Upon the completion of ODA, the NHTU may finally come up with the regional profile of the poor. Likewise, its database of poor families may already be shared to different social protection stakeholders for purposes like planning, identification of potential beneficiaries for protective programs and services, validation, and research among others.