A total of 72,834 indigent senior citizens aged 60 years old and above are receiving their stipend for January to June 2016 all over the 17 local government units in Metro Manila under the Social Pension program of Department of Social Welfare and Development – National Capital Region (DSWD-NCR).

Said beneficiaries are receiving an accumulated amount of P3,000.00 for the first and second quarter of 2016 or P500 per month as indicated in the Republic Act 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010 which serves as assistance of the government for their medicines and other needs.

Qualified beneficiaries of the program are the senior citizens who are frail, sickly or have disabilities; are not pensioners of any insurance company; without stable financial support from his/her relatives; and who are identified poor of the DSWD’s Listahanan database or assessed and validated by their respective local social welfare development as eligible beneficiaries of the program.

DSWD-NCR Director Vincent Andrew T. Leyson shared that the Field Office has the budget of P437,004,000.00 for 2016 to implement the Social Pension program which covers all the LGUs in NCR.

“DSWD-NCR is the lead agency in implementing the program, especially, in disbursing the funds for distribution to the social pensioners. In 2015, we implemented the door-to-door distribution of stipend, however, the conduit has not yet finished in liquidating the distributed cash that is why we now implement the over-the-counter pay-out distribution of the pension for this two (2) quarters,” Director Leyson added.

In 2015, DSWD implemented the lowered age coverage of Social Pension program wherein from the previous 77 years old qualification, it turned to 65 years old until this 2016 that it is now being availed by 60 years old and above.

The Field Office is also exploring additional service provider aside from PhilPost to deliver the pension of the beneficiaries via door-to-door distribution to prevent the senior citizens to personally go to payout venues and wait on queues.

Additional effort being explored by the Department is the forging of partnership with identified and qualified LGUs in the distribution of the cash assistance through the transfer of funds to them.

In this, LGUs may have ample time to disburse the funds and may plan efficiently in conducting the payout to a more accessible venues for the senior citizens.### (DSWD-NCR, Social Marketing Office)