Senior citizens will soon have an additional P500 on their monthly pension following the approval of an additional P25 billion budget to cover the increase especially for indigent citizens aged 60 years old and above.
On Tuesday, Senior Citizens Party-list Representative Rodolfo "Ompong" Ordanes lauded Senator Sonny Angara for its call to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to put in order the distribution of the increased monthly pension for senior citizens.
Angara earlier said that there are 466,000 backlog of senior citizen social pensioners based on the data of the DSWD.
“Senator Angara’s call is an additional voice for the immediate distribution of the social pension for our indigent senior citizens. This additional P500 for their pension is of big help for them to buy food and medicine,” said Ordanes.
In August this year, the Department of Budget and Management approved the P49.8 billion fund for the social pension which will cover the increase to P1,000.
The doubling of the social pension for indigent senior citizens was a result of the budget deliberation in line with the Republic Act 11916 amid calls from Ordanes and other groups to increase the pension.
Ordanes earlier assured indigent senior citizens that the additional social pension would be received starting January next year after the RA 11916 has lapsed into law in July last year.
Angara was among the co-authors of the RA 1191 and the principal author of the Republic Act 9994, or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act.
Ordanes said the additional social pension is important, especially that most of the senior citizens could no longer work and therefore, with limited or no capability to sustain their daily needs, especially on food and maintenance medicine.