MILLIONS OF SENIORS TO GET P1K PENSION
ABOUT 4 million indigent senior citizens will soon receive their P1,000 monthly pension.
This is according to Senior Citizens party-list Rep. Rodolfo Ordanes as he got assurance from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) that there will be funds for pensions.
“DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian personally confirmed to us that DSWD will source the increase from the unprogrammed funds, to augment the funds for the pension in the DSWD budget,” Ordanes said in a statement.
Ordanes said the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) is now being prepared by the National Commission on Senior Citizens.
The additional funding of P25.6 billion for the P500 increase in the social pension is being sourced from the 2023 unprogrammed funds.
The Republic Act (RA) 11916 that doubled the monthly stipend for indigent seniors has lapsed into law last.
The Palace’s economic managers earlier said the government is set to distribute this month P9.3 billion-worth of cash assistance under this extended TCT project to 9.3 million households considered most vulnerable to the economic shock of the still elevated inflation, driven mainly by the rocketing prices of certain foodstuff and the high cost of fuel in the global market.
The NCSC said in a February statement that only the indigent 4.1 million among the 12.2 million elderly Filipinos have been receiving and will continue to receive the monthly pension, and that the stipend is still at P500 per month and not P1,000.
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno earlier said that under this extended TCT of P1,000, the Marcos administration will give two-month cash payments to the 9.3 million most vulnerable households totaling P1,000 per beneficiary-family.
According to DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, P7 billion was sourced from the “unreconciled” funds from last year’s TCT that was still with the Land Bank of the Philippines (LandBank), while the remaining P2 billion was taken from the contingent fund of the Office of the President (OP).
