There are 60% qualified senior pension beneficiaries from the list of the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) as these people needs to be screened to ensure that they qualify to be a social pensioner.
According to Rose Fe Valeriano, Social Welfare Officer II, Social Pension Program, they follow a definite criteria and also assess the NHTS-PR list to make sure that these people are truly deserving to be included in the list of social pension beneficiaries, given that there is limited resources.
The criteria to be a social pension beneficiary are: should be indigent, 77 years old and above, Filipino citizen, sickly, disabled, no income or any other means of livelihood, no pension from private and government pension bodies, and no regular support from relatives.
“Yes, there are complaints. There are senior citizens who have complained because they are not included in our list of beneficiaries even if they qualify for social pension. Some complained because there are some senior citizens who are included in the Social Pension that are also receiving pension from SSS or GSIS. We go to the municipality to validate if the complaints are true. We immediately delist the names of social pension beneficiaries if we found out that they receive pension from SSS or from any pension bodies”, she said when asked about complaints in terms of inclusion and exclusion of beneficiaries.
Improved Social Pension Program
Valeriano said that starting this month of November, there will be 3 modes of cash distribution: through the transfer of funds to the Local Government Units, PHILPOST Door-to-Door payout and the Special Disbursing Officers (SDOs) who will go to the municipalities to give out the stipend of the Social pensioners.
The PHILPOST Door-to-Door payout is currently being scheduled for pilot testing in 10 municipalities such as Limasawa, Southern Leyte, Almagro, Tagapul-an and San Jose de Buan in Samar, Jipapad in Eastern Samar, Silvino Lubos, Lapinig, Gamay, San Vicente and Capul in Northern Samar.
“These municipalities are the most hard-to-reach areas by our SDOs”, she added.
She also reported that these Special Disbursing Officers will take control in disbursing funds to the municipalities as there are identified LGUs with bad track records in liquidating funds. The SDOs will also take charge in visiting and personally handing out the pension of the bedridden social pension beneficiaries.
“Sometimes it took 1 to 2 months for the beneficiary before the stipend will be received. It took that long because in every province there is only 1 SDO that disburse the pension except for Leyte which has 2 SDOs. Hopefully, this quarter will not take a long time for the pensions to be received as there will be 3 modes of payment to be used to fast track the pay-out”, she said.
Valeriano revealed that this year they have identified 14,294 target beneficiaries and now have served 13,882 or 98% of the beneficiaries.
Senior beneficiaries in high spirits
The stipend had helped social pensioners buy their basic needs like food, medicines and some other necessities like soap and toothpaste.
“In far flung and island municipalities, 100% of the stipend received by the pensioners was spent for food according to Municipal Social Welfare and Development officers (MSWDOs) and Barangay Officials. Community residents said that Social Pension changes the lives of our indigent beneficiaries, since they can now afford to buy food for their daily subsistence and medical needs”, Valeriano added.
The social pension has encouraged senior citizen to stay active and motivated in participating DSWD activities for the elderly.
“Senior Citizens everywhere are now very active to know about their rights, they already asked queries about RA 9994, specifically about the Social Pension Program”, Valeriano said.