THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-Davao said Monday, January 29, that indigent social pensioners will be receiving P200 more in monthly social pension, from P500 to P700 starting this year.
DSWD-Davao Director Mercedita Jabagat bared last week that all pensioners will be given P200 more monthly pension following the directive of the national office.
“The pension will be distributed every quarter. With the additional P200, our pensioners here will now receive a total of P2,100 per quarter,” DSWD-Davao public information officer Carmela Duron told SunStar Davao.
Duron said the additional P200 monthly grant is under the Unconditional Cash Grant, provided for by the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law. It will increase to P300 in 2019-2020.
The agency will implement the Unconditional Cash Grant scheme for three years as stipulated in the tax reform. It will release P2,100 in 2018 and P2,400 in 2019 and in 2020 in Davao.
“Our social pensioners will be surely happy. This would be a big help lalo na para sa pambili ng kanilang gamot and/or vitamins, and other stuffs that a social pensioner needed,” Duron added.
Duron also reiterated that only indigent older persons aged 65 years old and above are covered by the Social Pension Program under the Republic Act 9994 or The Expanded Senior Citizen Act.
The law specifies that seniors qualified to receive a monthly pension under the Social Pension Program of the DSWD are those who are frail, sickly or with disability; without any pension from other government agencies; and without a permanent source of income or source of financial assistance/compensation to support their basic needs.
Duron said as much as they would like to include all senior citizens from aged 60 and above, the budget for the Social Pension Program is only limited.
The DSWD-Davao recorded a total of 136,067 pensioners who received their monthly pension with a total fund of P816,404,000 while a total of 107 centenarians received a total fund of P10,700,000 cash grant last year.
