Butuan City – Thousands of applicants are applying for the second cycle of household assessment here in Caraga region. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) ensures that DSWD will hire competent and committed field staff among the applicants for this enormous undertaking that will change the fate of the poor.

“We are very serious in selecting the best field workers because DSWD wants to maintain the integrity of our data,” said Dante S. Rosales, NHTS-PR Regional Focal Person. This second cycle of household assessment is very crucial because it will determine if there are changes in the household’s status that have been assessed in 2009 and were already given social services and programs of our government. “In this period, we can also identify if the households are still poor, non-poor and near poor,” he added.

DSWD will also provide equipment and other logistical support for this household assessment. “We will use these equipment to expedite the internal operations, said Christoper A. Saavedra, NHTS-PR Regional Information Technology Officer.

The NHTS-PR is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are nationwide. The system makes available to national government agencies and other social protection stakeholders a database of poor households as reference in identifying potential beneficiaries of social protection programs and services. ###