ILOILO City – Senior citizens in Western Visayas have been wondering where their 2019 social pensions went.
The revalidation of beneficiaries delayed the release of the social pension, explained the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Region 6.
Last year, alarmed by the Commission on Audit’s (COA) discovery that 420 unqualified senior citizens in Iloilo City were included in the Social Pension Program for Indigent Senior Citizens (SPISC), DSWD ordered a Western Visayas-wide cleansing of its list of program beneficiaries.
The revalidated list was finalized by the DSWD central office and the names of qualified beneficiaries were forwarded to its Region 6 office in batches, according to DSWD-6 director Evelyn Macapobre.
“This is the reason why the release of the social pension is also being done in batches,” she stressed.
According to Macapobre, DSWD-6 has so far released the pension to 65 percent of the total number of social pensioners in the region.
There are an estimated 300, 000 DSWD social pensioners in Western Visayas.
DSWD-6 hopes to complete the release of the 2019 social pension before this month ends.
Macaprobre said it is DSWD-6 itself that releases the social pension; it is no longer coursed through local government units.
Under SPISC, a monthly stipend of P500 is given to indigent senior citizens to augment their daily subsistence and medical needs.
But only the following senior citizens are qualified:
* those who are frail, sickly or with disability
* those with no pension from the Government Service Insurance System, Social Security System, Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, Armed Forces and Police Mutual Benefit Association, Inc. or any other insurance company
* those with no permanent source of income
* those with no regular support from family or relatives for basic needs
According to COA, out of the 13,190 social pensioners in Iloilo City in 2019, 420 beneficiaries were found to be ineligible. This was 3.1 percent of the total number of beneficiaries of the program.
Each of these beneficiaries received P1,500 to P4,500.
This must not happen again, DSWD-6 stressed./PN
