Despite the challenge brought about by COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office Caraga has finally completed all the component activities for Listahanan 3 Validation and Finalization Phase in Caraga Region.

Under the said phase, activities such as posting of initial list of poor households at the barangay hall, receiving of grievances through desk and online, conducting Barangay Verification Team and Local Verification Committee Orientation, and visiting households for the re/assessment were all completed with the help of Listahanan Field workers and participation of the Barangay/ Local Government Units (B/LGUs).

A total of 106,483 households were approved by the BVT and LVC for the re/assessment. Of this number, 103,290 or 97% households were visited and interviewed by the assigned enumerators, where the remaining 3% of the target were visited but not interviewed due to the unavailability of the qualified respondent, households has transferred or moved-out and no exact forwarding address was provided, and vacant housing unit. Three callbacks were exerted by the field staff although as per validation procedure only one attempt shall be made to secure the interview.

Of all the 5 provinces, Surigao del Sur has the most number of households assessed with 29,214 followed by Agusan del Sur with 26,709 households, Surigao del Norte with 21,305 households, Agusan del Norte with 20,270 households, and Province of Dinagat Islands with 5,792 households assessed.

For the encoding and verification activities, a total of 50,955 or 100% of the barcoded HAFs were encoded and likewise, 103,290 or 100% of barcoded HAFs passed verification process as to completeness and accuracy.

As of writing, the Department already sent request to the National Household Targeting Office (NHTO) for the Proxy Means Test (PMT) running. This means that the data collected from the eligible respondents will be processed using the statistical tool to identify if the households belong to poor or non-poor households. After this, the agency through the National Household Targeting Section (NHTS) is preparing for the crafting of the regional profile of the poor which will be launched initially at the end of the current year.  ###(Social Marketing Section/DSWD Field Office Caraga)