Senior Citizen Party-list Rep. Rodolfo Ordanes on Sunday, Oct. 23, assured qualified senior citizens that they will start receiving their P1,000 monthly social pension next year as Congress will find a way to fund the portion of the 2023 budget that covers the said pension.
In a statement, the lawmaker stressed that leaders “see eye to eye on the necessity and imperative of funding the legislated increase in the indigent seniors' social pension.”
“Congress will find ways to fund Republic Act 11916. We simply have to let the budget process run its course as it has in the House and is ongoing now at the Senate,” he said, referring to the law mandating the increase in senior citizens’ social pension from P500 to P1,000.
RA 11916 lapsed into law on July 30. It stipulated the said increase in social pension under the Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens program of the government.
The allowance is given to qualified senior citizens who are frail, sickly, or with a disability, and without a pension or permanent source of income, compensation, or financial assistance from his or her relatives to support his or her basic needs.
Tasked to enact the law, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had earlier called on both Houses to prioritize the appropriation of funds for the program under the 2023 national budget.
“The senators are well aware of RA 11916 and its urgency. The House leadership also has a high awareness of the new law for indigent seniors,” Ordanes, the chairman of the House Special Committee on Senior Citizen Affairs, added.
The Lower House recently passed the record P5.268-trillion General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2023, while Senate is still deliberating on it.
However, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri promised that the Upper Chamber will commit to the schedule of approving the GAA in the second and third reading by the end of November.
Ordanes vowed that “there is no uncertainty in RA 11916 happening in 2023 because the detailed behind-the-scenes work continues.”
The “best timing” for it would be the bicameral conference on the 2023 proposed budget, he said.
“There is no let up in our hard work to champion the welfare of seniors, especially the indigents. We are unrelenting,” he emphasized.
During the budget hearings, the DSWD said that it would need P25,768,665,000 for the P500-increase in seniors’ social pension for around 4.085 million indigent seniors in 2023.