Pension program to cover all indigent Cordi senior citizens

By Nerizza Faye G. Villanueva

BAGUIO CITY -- The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through the Social Pension Program for Indigent Senior Citizens will now serve all indigent senior citizens in the Cordillera with expansion of the program.

According to DSWD-CAR regional director Janet P. Armas,  the region has 35,409 slots for for the Social Pension Program for  2015, and the region will receive around 34,000 additional slots.

This number will cover all indigent senior citizens as recorded by the Department through the lists submitted by the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA) and Federation of Senior Citizens Association of the Philippines (FSCAP) as validated by the local Social Welfare and Development Offices.

“We are expecting that all indigent senior citizens in our list will be covered by the program since we only have around 26,000 seniors waitlisted. We have already submitted the initial list, thus we are now waiting for the final list so we can start in distributing the stipend”, Armas said. 

For the first batch, additional P104,310,000.00 is expected to be distributed to 17,385 social pensioners.

“Since the available slots are more than the initial list, there are no reasons not to cover all the indigent senior citizens in the Cordillera. Thus, we ask our local social welfare and development officers to look into the list and update if necessary”, Social Pension Program Focal Person Carol U. Habawel said as she sought the assistance of the LSWDO, FSCAP and/ or OSCA in properly identifying possible social pensioners in their respective areas.

As per amendment of the implementing guidelines of the Social Pension Program, pensioners are identified by local Welfare officers in coordination with the OSCA and FSCAP.

“We also ask the potential pensioners or their relatives to coordinate with the social welfare and development offices in their LGUs to facilitate their inclusion in the program”, Habawel added.

DSWD’s Social Pension Program for Indigent Senior Citizen is for the elderly characterized as frail, sickly or with disability and without pension or permanent source of income or regular support from his family and relatives to meet his basic needs. This is pursuant to Republic Act No. 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010 which mandates the provision of additional benefits and privileges and institutionalization of social protection by providing monthly stipend to indigent senior citizens as support to the family in providing care to their sick and disabled senior citizens.