In a country where the poor are dispersed across many different areas, it is important for the government to know exactly where to direct its resources so that, no matter how scare these resources may be, they will be used by the people who need them the most. That is what the National Household Targeting System aims to achieve—-to know who and where the poor are.

Once known, these underprivileged sectors of the society will be the first in line to benefit from social protection programs such as health insurance, scholarships, social pension and conditional cash transfer grants as in the case of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. This characteristic alone makes the targeting system a boon for the government and a big step towards alleviating poverty in the most poverty-stricken areas of the country.

It facilitates a more efficient and effective delivery of the limited resources of the government in that those who are most deserving of the assistance are reached out to. In a way, it also prevents those who have enough to fend for themselves to share in these resources which limits the already limited privileges that the poor should really be enjoying.

What is most notable of the system is how data was gathered in the areas identified as pockets of poverty. The Household Assessment Form does not ask the exact income a household earns like what so many social surveys in the past did. Instead, the socioeconomic status of a household is determined by other poverty indicators such as family size, state of house, presence of furnitures and fixtures, and the like. These indicators cannot hide the actual state of the household in terms of its ability to meet the family’s daily basic needs for health, education, and social protection. The inclusion of a household in the NHTS list already uplifts its living conditions as the family is able to put food on the table and to send their young children to school.

Looking at the system in the point of view of the government, the NHTS makes work easier in terms of identifying who should really be the beneficiaries of social protection programs. For planning and implementing agencies, results of the NHTS are very useful since programs and projects are more specifically designed to touch base with the poor sector. All in all, the NHTS is an essential tool in alleviating poverty where poverty hinders the development of the human potential. It may have a few minor glitches along the way but these are overpowered by the benefits that both the government and the poor enjoy—the poor are smiling and feeling happy about their privileges, and the government is given a pat in the back for hitting its target. ### By Ann Margaret Y. Lasam, National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), (This piece won 3rd place during the NHTS Essay Writing Contest for National Government Agencies on June 14,2013 at Crown Lodge, Tuguegarao City)