Posted on by May Castillo

senior citizens laua-anTHE DSWD has recently disclosed that more senior citizens will be benefiting from the Social Pension program.

1.Senior citizens in Laua-an celebrate their triumph as they receive their dream of fully-equipping their center with equipment and facilities
1. Senior citizens in Laua-an celebrate their triumph as they receive their dream of fully-equipping their center with equipment and facilities

Judith Tanate-Barredo, focal person on Social Pension and the Elderly Sector, said that the program will cater to elderly indigents with age 65 and above this year.
“While we only gave social pension to those indigent elderly 77 years old and above in the previous years, we will be covering more this year,” said Barredo.
According to Barredo, there will be 67,499 elderly who can benefit from the program.
Of this, Iloilo Province has 23,552 senior citizens covered; Negros Occidental, 15,643; Capiz, 9,121; Aklan, 8,559; Antique, 8,113 and Guimaras, 2,491.
Last year, only more than 30,000 elderly were served.
The Social Pension program is the provision of monthly stipend amounting to P500 to augment the daily subsistence and other medical needs of indigent senior citizens.
It is in-line with the fulfillment of the obligation of the government to protect the most vulnerable sector through social protection, and for the full implementation of the Republic Act No. 9994.
It aims to improve the living condition of eligible indigent senior citizens.
Also, it is implemented to augment the capacity of indigent senior citizens to meet their daily subsistence and medical requirements; reduce incidence of hunger among indigent senior citizens; and to protect indigent senior citizens from neglect, abuse, or deprivation./dswd6/May Grecia-Rago