THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) said on Wednesday that indigent members of the elderly sector are already covered by the Social Pension Program (SPP) of the agency, as prescribed by the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010.
Social Welfare Secretary Corazon J. Soliman said that, under such program, indigent senior citizens receive a monthly cash grant of P500, which is distributed quarterly or every three months.
Soliman made the clarification, amid the proposal of Vice President Jejomar Binay to include senior citizens 60 to 64 years old in the Conditional-Cash Transfer or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) of the government.
She said that both sectors—elderly and children or students—are already being assisted in the different programs of the DSWD.
“Pantawid Pamilya is essentially an investment in our students’ future. It is for our children. The SPP specifically addresses the medical and other personal needs of our indigent elders. That is the difference between the two programs,” the DSWD chief explained.
She said in the first year of implementation of the SPP, only those 77 years old and older were covered due to the limited funds approved by Congress.
She added that as they understand the needs of the impoverished seniors, DSWD has been expanding the program yearly with the support of the Aquino administration and the legislature.
For 2016, Soliman said indigent senior citizens 60 years old and older, who meet the criteria or are qualified, can already benefit from the program.
Among those qualified to receive the monthly pension are senior citizens who are frail, sickly, or with disability; without pension from the Government Service Insurance System, Social Security System, Armed Forces and Police Mutual Benefit Association Inc. and other insurance companies; and without any permanent source of income or regular support from relatives.
This year a total of 1,368,941 senior citizens nationwide are covered by the program, with a total allocation of P8,711,203,000, she said.
Meanwhile, on the remarks of the Vice President about the Commission on Audit (COA) observations in the 4Ps, Soliman reiterated that the concerns raised in the audit report were already resolved with the COA.
Soliman said the COA auditors were merely seeking documentation of program implementation and did not state that there was an actual misuse or misappropriation of funds. “The COA audit observations do not mean that there are irregularities. These are part of the government’s check-and-balance mechanisms to enhance its operations,” Soliman said.
On the Vice President’s statement that there are a lot of unqualified recipients of the program, Soliman said the Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries are identified through the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) or “Listahanan.”
She said the NHTS-PR or Listahanan is a database that shows who and where the poor are in the country.