The Listahanan, also known as the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction, of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is recently conducting special validation for beneficiaries of the Modified Conditional Cash Transfer Program for Families in Need of Special Protection (MCCT-FNSP).
The special validation aims to include family beneficiaries of the MCCT-FNSP who have graduated from the program in 2013 to the Listahanan database of poor household to guarantee their advancement to the regular Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the DSWD.
On the memorandum signed by the DSWD Secretary Corazon Soliman, “the special validation will uphold Listahanan’s objective of ensuring that all potentially poor households are assessed and included in the database which serves as the basis for selecting recipients of the social protection program of the national government.”
Beneficiaries of MCCT-FNSP are families not usually captured in the regular Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program usually known as the Pantawid Pamilya, but have children in difficult circumstances that need specialized model of interventions. These families include street/homeless families, families with street children, child laborers, out of school, children with disabilities, indigenous peoples, migrants, and informal settlers pursuing better economic opportunities and displaced families due to man-made and natural disasters.
MCCT is a modified approach designed to maximize the reach of the CCT to help families and children in difficult circumstances to overcome their situation and to eventually mainstream them into Pantawid Pamilya.
Like the Pantawid Pamilya program, MCCT beneficiaries receive cash grants provided they comply with the program’s conditionaties. These are weekly attendance to Family Development Sessions for the first two months and once a month attendance to FDS for the succeeding months and family counseling sessions; attendance of children to alternative mode of learning or formal schools; visit to health centers; and residing to a permanent home after six months of social preparation.
In the Cordillera Administrative Region, MCCT is implemented in Benguet and Kalinga provinces only. Listahanan targets to validate more than 2,000familybeneficiariesof MCCT-FNSP from the said provinces. On the other hand, another modality of CCT will be implemented for Indigenous People in Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (CCT for IP GIDA). This modality is seen to benefit additional 2,000 families in areas which are classified as isolated and disadvantaged. The CCT for IP GIDA will be pilot tested in Sitio Talipugo, Brgy. Buneg in Lacub, Abra and will benefit around 70 families in the said community. Special assessment for families in the target areas is already being scheduled.
Meanwhile, Listahanan is also conducting the special assessment for indigent senior citizens under the Social Pension Programs but are not included in the database of poor household. Around 3000 senior citizens are to be assessed in the region for the resumption of their stipends from the Social Pension Program as required by the 2014 General Appropriations Act. DSWD-CAR, SOCIAL MARKETING UNIT, Kaye Ann O. Mapalo