The National Household Targeting Unit of the Department of Social Welfare and Development 6 is now conducting a special validation of the areas that were affected by the ‘Hanging Habagat’ (southwest monsoon) last year.

Twenty-seven enumerators and four area supervisors, who were hired for the activity, recently underwent training at the Eon Centennial Hotel in Iloilo City in preparation for the special validation. They were deployed on March 7, 2013 to 11 areas in Iloilo including Iloilo City to assess a target of 9, 827 households that were affected by the weather disturbance.

Assessment of affected households should be done before the March 29, 2013 election ban, said Rebecca P. Geamala, NHTS-PR’s deputy regional project manager.

DSWD Secretary Corazon Soliman earlier approved the conduct of special validation in Regions 1, 3, 4A, 4B, 6 and the National Capital Region. Approximately, one million households were reportedly affected by the strong winds and rains, causing families to flee their homes and stay with relatives or relocate to other places. A corresponding budget of P10 million was allocated for the training workshops, traveling expenses, cost of service for field support staff, and other logistics who will conduct the special validation. In Regon 6, the special validation will cover the towns of Oton, Dumangas, Janiuay, San Joaquin, Igbaras, Pototan, Zarraga, Leganes, Barotac Nuevo, New Lucena and Iloilo City. The NHTU has already secured a list of families affected by Habagat from the local government units for name matching.

The special validation is aimed at achieving these goals: determine the present condition of NHTO identified poor and non-poor households, know the poverty status of households not yet assessed by NHTO but were affected by Habagat and to generate a pool of potential beneficiaries to be included in the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.

Enumerators will be using the Household Pre-Assessment Form (HPAF), the Household Need Assessment Form (HNAF) and the Household Assessment Form (HAF) to assess the present condition of households. The HPAF will be used as an inventory of households staying in the areas affected by Habagat and help the NHTU identify the poor and non-poor households already in the database and those who are not. The HNAF will help identify the needs of the households and will increase the information in the HAF while the HAF will determine the poverty status of the household.

Geamala said the results of the assessment will be used as basis what services and assistance would be provided to the affected families. Those identified poor but are not included in the database of NHTS-PR may later on be considered for their possible enrolment in Pantawid Pamilya, while those who would not come out as poor during the assessment would still be provided with services based on their needs./DSWD6/Wenna A. Berondo