SOUTH COTABATO – The Provincial Planning and Development Office (PPDO) of the Province of South Cotabato entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with DSWD field office XII through the National Household Targeting Unit to access the information of poor households of the province.

According to Jennifer C. Bretaña, Coordinator of the PPDO, the data obtained from the DSWD Listahanan Database will be used as a reference in the selection and prioritization of programs and services for our clientele and for the disadvantaged and marginalized sectors that needs our intervention based on their immediate needs.

“Before, the province and even the offices are having the difficulty of collecting information of the households in the province. Now, we are happy to have Listahanan database of DSWD as our basis for identifying potential beneficiaries for the province of South Cotabato,” said by Vice Governor Vicente R. De Jesus during the turn-over ceremony at the covered court, province of South Cotabato.

The data will also serve as reference to identify and determine beneficiaries, individuals, families and communities in the implementation of social protection programs and other programs. – Bretaña added.

The DSWD XII, on behalf of our regional director Bai Zorahayda T. Taha, was grateful to inform the employees and officials of the province about the significant aspects and importance of the Listahanan Database. Aside from the fact that Listahanan provides face to the statistics, it can be used for targeting of social assistance programs, planning, validation and research. – Said by Sohra Pandi Guilel, chief of the Policy and Plans Division

Guialel added that the list of poor families generated from the database, however, can be shared with national government agencies and other stakeholders upon execution of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between DSWD and the data user. The Listahanan’s data is protected under a memorandum of agreement, which ensures that the data will be used only for its intended purposes.

The province of South Cotabato designated Reitz Rashee D. Bautista, Statistician I as Data Protection Officer while Assistant Regional Director for Administration Jackiya A. Lao as designated DSWD XII Data Protection Officer.

DSWD XII Listahanan Data as of December 2016

There were 360,395 identified poor households on SOCCSKSARGEN: South Cotabato – 77,975 HHs, North Cotabato – 137,950 HHs, Sarangani – 55,766 HHs and Sultan Kudarat – 76,271 HHs and Cotabato City – 12,433 HHs.

Of the total 77,975 poor HHs in the province of South Cotabato, the following are the breakdown per city and municipality:

City / Municipality	Identified Poor Households
BANGA	6,139 HHs
CITY OF KORONADAL	6,405 HHs
GENERAL SANTOS CITY	17,182 HHs
LAKE SEBU	8,705 HHs
NORALA	2,988 HHs
POLOMOLOK	5,200 HHs
SANTO NIÑO	3,115 HHs
SURALLAH	4,213 HHs
T BOLI	11,928 HHs
TAMPAKAN	2,901 HHs
TANTANGAN	3,452 HHs
TUPI	5,747 HHs
Grand Total	77,975 Households

“Listahanan makes available the database of families AT NO COST,” Guialel ended.

In 2015, it can be recalled the DSWD conducted the house-to-house assessment of all the households to get their socioeconomic information. This resulted in the identification of 360,395 poor households (HHs) out of the 805,379 total assessed HHs in SOCCSKSARGEN areas.

Moreover, to request the list of poor households including their personal information, the following documents are needed along with the letter of request addressed to the Regional Director:

Local Government Units (LGUs)

• Signed MOA (Governor/Mayor)
• Sangguniang Panlalawigan/ Bayan Resolution
• Executive Order designating a Provincial/City/Municipal Data Privacy Officer

National Government Agencies (NGAs)

• Signed MOA with designated Data Protection Officer

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

• Signed MOA with designated Data Protection Officer (DPO)
• Board Resolution (original copy)
• Valid proof of identification of agency head and DPO
• SEC Registration

Members of the Academe

• Data sharing shall be limited to raw data and statistics
• The letter of request from researcher/professor/research adviser and vouched by the Dean or any school authority

As indicated in the data sharing guidelines, all stakeholders requesting access to the list of poor households are required to designate at least one (1) Data Protection Officer who will oversee the use, security and protection of the data. Furthermore, data users have to submit reports to the DSWD on how the data were utilized including if these were shared with other data users.

Listahanan, also known as the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR), is an information management system that identifies who, where and how many poor are nationwide.###