In photo: One-on-One Interview. Mr. Felipe Adarme, Regional Field Coordinator, asking questions from the Household Assessment Form (HAF) to one of the households in Lukidnon Nueva Vizacaya.

Tuguegarao City—Department of Social Welfare and Development Field Office 02 Regional Household Targeting Unit conducted special household assessment in Barangay Lukidnon, Dupax del Sur, Nueva Vizcaya on February 17-22, 2013.

RHTU’s Mr. Felipe Adarme, Regional Field Coordinator, Mr. Christopher Soriano, Regional Associate Statistician and Mr. Matthias James Ryan Tangonan, Regional Information Technology Officer went to the said barangay to undertake the activity.

According to Mr. Adarme, there were 89 households which were identified by the barangay officials, of which 82 of them were assessed.

Barangay Lukidnon, Dupax del Sur, is one of the remotest barangays in the province of Nueva Vizcaya. One has to pass the towns of Aritao, Sta. Fe, Nueva Vizcaya and Carranglan, Nueva Ecija before reaching the place. The barangay was not covered during the first round of household assessment in 2009 and during the On-Demand-Application and validation in 2010 due to peace and order problems.

However, Mayor Romeo Magaway Jr. of Dupax del Sur has recently appealed to Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman for special assessment in their area.

“Most of the houses are inaccessible even to our motorbikes because there are only trails that lead to them. We need to walk an hour or two just to reach the next target households.” Mr. Tangonan said.

“A once in a life time experience, words cannot describe the difficulties we encountered during our travel. It was hard but it is incomparable to the hardship of the people of Lukidnon. It was more than an adventure, it was an opportunity to learn and because of what I experienced, I realized that with my current opportunities I am still privileged and blessed.” Mr. Soriano shared.

“Our Journey beyond the vast and rocky mountains of Barangay Lukidnon was a very exciting and very challenging experience. With all the things that we have encountered during the special assessment I have realized that we are there to give them a hand, it will be their first step in the realization of their dreams. At the end of the assessment I felt the sense of fulfillment, knowing the fact that we became an instrument for them to have a better life.” Mr. Tangonan added.

The National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction was created to identify who and where the poor are and to provide the basis for the identification of beneficiaries of social protection programs. ### By Ailyn P. Aglaua, NHTS-PR Administrative Assistant V