By Danny O. Calleja
LEGAZPI CITY, Jan. 22 (PNA) — The implementation of the Listahanan project of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) this year will determine, among other vital facts, if access to electricity of households in Bicol has improved from its dismal record three years ago.
According to DSWD Regional Director Arnel Garcia based here, electricity has become very important in today’s culture being a crucial part in making a society smoothly functional, given that apart from its social benefits, it is also a driving factor of economic progress.
Its usage, which ranges from communication and transportation to production, has undeniably become a modern need of mankind as people from different walks of life use electricity to communicate, in work and even in entertainment, to make their lives easier.
Basically, everything people use in their households is powered by electricity and families would definitely be productive in their chores if they have access to electricity, Garcia on Wednesday told the Philippine News Agency.
He lamented, however, that based on the July 2011 data of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) or the Listahanan the poor households that have no access to electricity in Bicol were still halfway from the total number of poor households in the region.
Listahanan statistics show that 52.9 percent or 122,918 of the total number of households in rural areas have no access to electricity while 38.5 percent endures the same predicament in urban areas all throughout the Bicolandia.
The areas still with no access to electricity were found in the provinces of Masbate, Camarines Sur, Albay and Sorsogon and it is lamentable that lack of access to modern energy services in these places indicates poverty, deprivation and limited economic development.
“Limited access to electricity is a barrier to the betterment of lives of the poor families and this situation calls for every organization like local government units (LGUs) to implement projects to solve this dilemma as well as to extend their help to those families who still do not have access to electricity, particularly in these four Bicol provinces mentioned,” Garcia stressed.
Latest assessment through Proxy Means Test (PMT) reached 775,014 households in the region and 59.5 percent or 461, 242 of them were identified as poor, with Masbate having the biggest percentage, followed closely by Albay; Camarines Sur, third; Camarines Norte, fourth; Sorsogon, fifth; and Catanduanes, sixth.
PMT is a statistical model that estimates the income of families using the proxy variables that include family composition, education of family members, family conditions, and access to basic services.
Estimated income of a family is compared to the poverty threshold per province to determine if it is poor or non-poor.
Two separate models are used to estimate income for urban and rural households.
The PMT assessed in Masbate 60,257 households and 103,478 or 64.6 percent were identified as poor while of Albay’s 141,617 households, 88,242 or 62.3 percent were poor and Camarines Sur with 226,714 households had 136,208, equivalent to 60 percent, listed as poor.
The same statistics shows Camarines Norte having 40,802 poor or 56.5 percent of its 72,227 households; Sorsogon 75,769 poor or 53.6 percent of its 141,388 households; and Catanduanes, 16,743 or 51 percent poor out of its 32,811 households.
“Comes the second round of the Listahanan this year and we will find out if there has been any improvement in the access to electricity of poor Bicolano households after the three-year period gap from the listing as of 2011,” Garcia said.
Listahanan is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are and made available to national government agencies and other social protection stakeholders a database of poor families as basis in identifying potential beneficiaries of social protection programs and services.
DSWD is the agency tasked to lead the implementation of this project in coordination with other national government agencies (NGAs) and LGUs.
Garcia said the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) would not be a success if it failed to target the real poor.
The 4Ps is one of the biggest programs which extensively uses the Listahanan.
It now benefits nearly 400,000 households in Bicol where poverty incidence, according to the latest statistics released by the NSCB, was at 36 percent.
Through the Listahanan, programs and resources are given to the rightful beneficiaries and to further ensure it, the upcoming second round of assessment will apply new features in the PMT to minimize the inclusion and exclusion error rates, Garcia added. (PNA)