A screenshot of an announcement made by the Facebook page “President Rodrigo Duterte” has been circulating on the social networking site since June last year, but it is still actively receiving comments up to now. The announcement reminded everyone that indigent senior citizens who are 60 years old and above can claim their P6,000 yearly pension from their municipal or city hall.
We looked for the Facebook post made by the page itself and found a longer article accompanying the reminder.
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The comments section on the screenshot posted a certain Nida Enguerra blew up with questions for more clarifications as to how they, or their parents, can get access to the said P6,000 pension, and with complaints about how their old parents never even got to enjoy the said pension from the government.
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However, there were also commenters who tried to explain the issue, saying that the said P6,000 funds are only intended for the indigents.
First, let’s learn about the history of this law that seeks to help the elderly Filipinos.
Republic Act No. 7432 (An Act to Maximize the Contribution of Senior Citizens to Nation Building, Grant Benefits and Special Privileges) was approved by the late President Corazon Aquino on April 23, 1992.
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It was then amended by RA No. 9257, known as the “Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2003, which was signed by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on February 26, 2004.
This was further amended in 2010 by RA No. 9994, known as the “Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010,” which was once again signed by former President Arroyo on February 15, 2010.
This law said this about Social Pension under Section 5.
“Indigent senior citizens shall be entitled to a monthly stipend amounting to Five hundred pesos (Php500.00) to augment the daily subsistence and other medical needs of senior citizens, subject to a review every two (2) years by Congress, in consultation with the DSWD.”
But due to limited financial resources, only those who were 80-year-olds and above were enlisted to receive the social pension. This was later lowered to 77 and to 65 years old in February 2015.
In March 2016, Senator Ralph Recto announced that almost half a million more indigent Filipino senior citizens will receive their P500 monthly social pension effective that same year after the Congress increased their budget by P3 billion.
Recto even described the qualifications of the recipients of the P500 monthly stipend. Only senior citizens who are sickly, frail, or have disabilities; those who are not recipients of a pension from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the Social Security System (SSS), or a veteran’s pension; and those who do have a permanent source of income are allowed to receive this social pension. Seniors who want to apply for this program must be able to prove that they have all these qualifications to get their social pension.
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“By increasing the budget for this program, all indigent seniors 60 years old and above must be covered by the proposed allocation. The policy is no senior left behind,” Recto was quoted by The Manila Standard.
To clarify things, not all Filipino senior citizens who are 60 years old and above can receive the P500 monthly (P6,000 yearly) social pension because it is only intended to help out the indigents, the qualifications of whom were defined by Recto above. It’s not like what some of the commenters thought – that all seniors are entitled to getting P500 per month.
However, there was indeed an issue about indigent seniors not being able to enjoy this privilege, as what was once claimed by the camp of former Vice President Jejomar Binay, about how almost 55,500 seniors were unable to get their pensions in 2014.
Sources: (doh.gov.ph, lawphil.net, gov.ph, thestandard.com.ph)
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