Regional Director Gemma B. Gabuya presents the Profile of the Poor in Region III: the second assessment covered 1,379,927 households. Of these, 244,593 or 17.73% were identified as poor households in the region. This comprised 4.78% of the 5,116,976 identified poor households nationwide.
Regional Director Gemma B. Gabuya presents the Profile of the Poor in Region III: the second assessment covered 1,379,927 households. Of these, 244,593 or 17.73% were identified as poor households in the region. This comprised 4.78% of the 5,116,976 identified poor households nationwide.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development Field Office III (DSWD FO III) presented on June 29 the profile of targeted poor families based on the result of the LISTAHANAN second round of assessment implemented in 2015.

Speaking before the 300 guests from the local government units (LGUs), national government agencies (NGAs), academe, civil society organizations (CSOs), media and representative from the International Community, Director Gemma Gabuya said the second assessment covered 1,379,927 households in Central Luzon. Of these, 244,593 or 17.73% were identified as poor households. This comprised 4.78% of the 5,116,976 identified poor households nationwide.

The poor households were identified through the Listahanan second assessment conducted in 2015. The LISTAHANAN or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) is an administrative tool for targeting poor families.

The assessment used the Proxy Means Test (PMT) models to estimate the per capita income of the households. Through this assessment, the DSWD FO III identified 244,593 targeted poor households regionwide with annual per capita income less than the poverty threshold reported by the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) for 2015.

Meanwhile, 596,596 poor individuals of the targeted poor households reside in urban areas and 805,222 live in urban areas, Gabuya added.

Gabuya also identified the top three (3) provinces with the most number of poor households in the region. Nueva Ecija topped the list with 69,048 poor households or 28.23% followed by Pampanga with 47,831 or 19.56% and Bulacan with 43,246 or 17.68%.

Of the 1,401,878 poor individuals who comprise the 244,953 identified poor house households, 51.88% or 727,290 are male and 48.12% or 674,588 are female. Meanwhile, 651,584 or 46.48% are children who are 3-18 years old; 32,018 or 22.83% are youth aged 15-30; 53,019 or 3.78% are senior citizen who are 60 and above; and 1.25% or 17,564 are persons with disability.

There are 9,912 or 4.05% poor households who belong to the Indigenous People’s (IPs) Group. The highest numbers of IPs are found in the Province of Zambales, Gabuya added.

On education, there are 236,935 poor individuals or 16.90% are attending elementary (6-11 years old) and 112,766 poor individuals are attending high school (12-15 years old). Meanwhile, 27,440 poor individuals or 1.96% are attending college (16-30 years old); 30.54% or 428,087 poor individuals are attending school (3-18 years old); and 24.13% or 338,275 poor individuals attained any level level in high school (15 years old and above.

On labor force: 51.84% or 726,794 poor individuals are part of labor force with ages 15 years old and above. A total of 409,882 poor individuals or 29.24% are reported to have no occupation (15 years old and above) while 23,204 poor individuals or 1.66% of the working population have no formal education.

Meanwhile, 21.08% or 51,557 do not have access to electricity; 10.47% or 25,600 do not have access to safe water system; and 32.86% or 80370 do not have sanitary toilet facility.
Poor households have three (3) major assets, namely, telephone/cellphone- 151,860; television- 140,221; and radio- 43,892, Gabuya added.

Gabuya also informed the group that to get hold of the names and addresses of poor households, families or individuals, a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the DSWD and the interested data user must be executed. ### (ETManalo)

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