The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Region 3 conducted recently an orientation for encoders and verifiers in the region for the second round validation of Listahanan.

The orientation was led by Ms. Gracia Zablan, Regional Focal Person and Kevin James Roque, Regional Information Technology Officer. Zablan discussed the importance of being an encoder and how can they help in achieving accurate information for the program.

Meanwhile, Jessa Marzan, Statistician II who stressed the need for validation said that there are households that should not be included in the list of poor households (inclusion error), and households that claim they should be in the list (exclusion error); and some data entered in the Family Assessment Form are incomplete. This will result list inaccurate list that do not represent the actual number of poor households in the community.

Validation phase provides opportunity for the review of the preliminary list of poor and non-poor households generated after the initial Proxy Means Test (PMT); facilitates the identification of erroneous entries; inclusion of households not assessed; and accommodates changes based on merit. It also aims to come up with an accurate, credible, and final list that will be generated after a thorough review with the communities and their LGU’s.

LISTAHANAN is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are nationwide. It gives a face to poverty statistics, addresses the increase in poverty incidence, develops a unified criteria in identifying the poor, and shares the database of poor households to stakeholders engaged in social protection and reduce leakage of scarce resources to the non-poor. ### (FTSanga, Jr)