The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has assessed a total of 558, 944 households across the CALABARZON Region as part of the 2015 Household Assessment under the agency’s Listahanan Targeting System.

The Listahanan is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are in the country. It makes available to national government agencies and social protection stakeholders a database of poor families as reference in identifying potential beneficiaries of programs and services for the poor.

In the region, the assessment began in April and targets to cover 1,534,464 households.

The Listahanan household assessment involves a house-to-house interview with household members, which is conducted by DSWD-hired enumerators.

Anne Atienza, 36, one of the more than 1,900 enumerators for this assessment, shares that going from house to house is a challenge for most of them. However, they need to do their work properly to ensure the accuracy of the data of the Listahanan targeting system.

 “Kahit nakakapagod, may kapupuntahan naman ‘yung pinagtatrabahuan ko dahil alam kong ito ay makakatulong sa kapwa ko Pilipino,” shared Atienza, who is assigned in Mataas na Kahoy in Batangas Province.

The current Listahanan household assessment is the second round of enumeration of poor households in the country. The first round was conducted last 2009 and according to the database of poor households from the said assessment, there are a total of 389,788 households identified as poor in the region. These households have been prioritized by the DSWD in the provision of different programs and services for the poor including the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, Sustainable Livelihood Program and Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens among others.#