The number of Boholano families living in poverty has increased based on an assessment made by the Department of Welfare and Development (DSWD) and its second Listahan Database.
According to Rachel Cuizon, Listahan statistician for DSWD 7, the number of Bohol households considered poor rose from 70,028 in 2009 to 99,993 in the department’s latest data.
Listahan, a database that allows easy access to information on poor families, was designed to be used as basis for the programs of institutions such as DSWD-7, PhilHealth, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, and Department of Energy, among others, Cuizon told DYRD Balita.
Poor households should be reached by the programs of government and Listahan is among the ways to do it, she added.
The basis for considering families poor depends on their lack of basic services and facilities inside their homes including water, electricity, toilet, and appliances, and those under the category are deemed the “poorest of the poorâ€.
According to Cuizon, the rise in the said count could also be a result of the doubled efforts of enumerators of the DSWD to determine the actual number of poor families in Bohol as the government seeks to double the number of beneficiaries of its poverty programs.
The department also attributed the increase to the province’s growing population and impact of calamities.
The number of poor households in Central Visayas rose to 385,534 this year, marking an almost 25 percent increase from the previous Listahan Database which recorded 314,654 families living in poverty. (with repots from Allen Doydora)