Over 55K Ilocos households validated 4Ps beneficiaries

ORIENTATION -- Personnel of the Department of Social Welfare and Development Ilocos regional office hold a meeting with potential new beneficiaries under Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program last week. Some 55,170 indigent households in the region were validated as potential beneficiaries of the program. (Photo courtesy of DSWD Ilocos regional office)

By Hilda Austria

MALASIQUI, Pangasinan –The Dept. of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) validated around 55,170 indigent households as potential beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps) in the Ilocos Region.
The July 21, 2023 validation status report of the DSWD Ilocos regional office showed, of the total number, 47,142 were in Pangasinan, 3,236 in Ilocos Norte, 4,031 in Ilocos Sur, and 761 in La Union.
    The current data was already 97.23 percent of the 56,750 target number of potential beneficiaries of the region.
DSWD central office provided the target number to fill in the slots of the households who graduated and delisted from the program.
    In a phone interview on Thursday, DSWD Ilocos regional office 4Ps information officer Jaesem Ryan Gaces said the number was a target given by the 4Ps National Program Management Office (NPMO) to meet the 4.4 million national target.
    “These are from the Listahanan 3 Database as a new set of potential 4Ps beneficiaries. These poor households with children below 18 years old or with a pregnant member at the time of assessment were identified based on the DSWD’s standardized targeting system (STS) as stipulated in the Republic Act No. 11310 or 4Ps Act,” he said.
    Their names will be posted in public places in their locality after the validation process.
Enrolment will commence for the potential beneficiaries after the completion of the posting process and they will also undergo orientation about the program, including their responsibility, and sign an oath of commitment.
    The validated indigent households were from the "Listahanan 3" database, which has recorded 184,716 poor households out of the 974,861 assessed households in the Ilocos Region as of 2022.
In a separate interview, DSWD Ilocos Listahanan information officer Jaymante Pearl Apilado said Pangasinan has the highest magnitude of poor with 155,529 households; followed by Ilocos Sur with 14,361 households; Ilocos Norte with 10,208; and La Union with 4,618.
    Among the four provinces in the region, Pangasinan has the highest land area and population among the provinces in the Ilocos Region.
    The poor basic sectors covered by Listahanan are children, youth, women, older persons, farmers, fisherfolk, persons with disabilities, migrant workers, urban poor, rural poor, formal sector workers, and self-employed and unpaid family members.
DSWD said Listahanan 3 database could serve as a basis for identifying potential beneficiaries for social protection programs and services, as a mechanism for validating data on poverty produced by other sources, and as data sources and references for research and studies. -- PNA