The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) warned the public against “bogus” survey enumerators who extort money from families in exchange for a promise to include them as beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program.
This came after DSWD-Field Office IV-A received a report that individuals are allegedly taking advantage of the ongoing assessment of poor families under Listahanan or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) in Maragondon and Magallanes in Cavite.
Listahanan is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are. It makes a comprehensive database of poor families available to national government agencies and other social protection stakeholders to serve as basis in identifying beneficiaries of social protection programs and services.
The Listahanan is now conducting the 2nd round of nationwide assessment with 15.3 million target households.
Based on the initial investigation by the DSWD-Field Office, the modus operandi was to introduce themselves as DSWD employees and collect P20 from the household members, giving them assurance that they will be included in the list of possible program beneficiaries.
A similar incident also happened in Morong, Rizal.
DSWD is now in close coordination with the Philippine National Police to track these individuals and prevent them from further deceiving the public.
DSWD clarified that official enumerators wear official Listahanan IDs with their photo, name, and signature of their DSWD Regional Director. They conduct house to house interviews using the Family Assessment Form (FAF) which will have a watermark of the DSWD logo in the middle of the sheet. The FAF is also difficult to replicate since it is printed on paper as wide as two A4 sheets.
After the interview, enumerators post a sticker on the house to indicate that the household has been assessed. They do not collect any fee from families to make them eligible program beneficiaries.
DSWD encourages households to request for the ID number of the enumerators. If they have any complaints regarding their validation, they can give the ID number to the Listahanan office so that DSWD can verify the complaint and take appropriate action.
The public is advised to report any similar incident to the nearest DSWD or reach the Listahanan through voice hotline number (02) 717-3770 local 88876 for grievances. They may also send their concerns to text hotline numbers 0918-9122813 by texting Listahanan<space>name<space>location<space>grievance/inquiry.
They may also reach Listahanan through its email address ask.listahanan@dswd.gov.ph or its official Facebook page at www.facebook.com/listahanan.official. ###DSWD Social Marketing Service
