Baguio City – The Listahanan, or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR), of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) now prepares for the conduct of special assessment for social pensioners. Target social pensioners are those endorsed by the local government units who received financial assistance from the Social Pension Program as of December 2013 but are not included in the Listahanan database of poor households, Project Development Officer Lilia Rose A. Say-awen said. The Social Pension is a program of the DSWD that provides Php500 monthly stipends to indigent senior citizens. In a memorandum signed by DSWD Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman, the special assessment of indigent senior citizens will legitimize the resumption of the payment of monthly stipend to social pensioners as required by the 2014 General Appropriations Act. It will also uphold the objective of Listahanan in ensuring that all potential poor households are assessed and included in the database which serves as the basis for selecting recipients of social protection programs. The National Household Targeting Unit (NHTU) of the DSWD Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) targets to assess around 3,000 indigent senior citizens in the region for them to be part of the Listahanan database. The NHTU has already identified field staff to be trained and deployed in the provinces for the special assessment which is scheduled early next month. The field staff will be using the new Family Assessment Form which has additional and enhanced variables. Meanwhile, the Department clarifies that the national second round of family assessment has no definite schedule yet since the proposed budget is still under deliberation at the national level. DSWD-CAR, SOCIAL MARKETING UNIT, Kaye Ann O. Mapalo