House told: Hasten passage of bill increasing social pension for seniors

MANILA, Philippines — Bayan Muna Chairman Neri Colmenares and Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate on Monday urged the House leadership to fast track House Bill No. 3934 which seeks to increase the social pension for seniors citizens.

“We have been filing bills to increase the pension of seniors since 2011 and we hope that the hike in social pension would become law before the end of this year, especially since the prices of goods and services have all increased,” Colmenares said in a statement.

In February last year, the House committee on population and family relations approved, with amendments, HBN 3934 and several other similar bills increasing the social pension of seniors, “but nothing happened after that,” Colmenares said.

Zarate explained that “based on the committee report, an increase of the social pension to P1,000/month (from P500) for all seniors with pension of P3,500/month or less,” was approved.

The committee, Zarate said, also approved their proposal to remove requirements like frail, sickly or with a disability before senior citizens could avail of the social pension.

“This was a good start but imagine our disappointment as well as the seniors when nothing happened for almost a year,” he lamented.

The P500-worth monthly pension is provided under Republic Act (RA) No.9994, or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010.

Former House appropriations committee chair and Davao Rep. Karlo Nograles earlier said that due to the shortage of funds, only senior citizens who are aged 70 and above are allowed to avail of the social pension program (SPP).

Citing data from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Nograles also said some 2.8 million indigent senior citizens benefited from the SSP last in 2018 from a budget of P17.1 billion.

For 2018, the target beneficiaries were raised to three million indigent senior citizens following a budget increase of P19.2 billion, the lawmaker added. /je