Recto pushes for more senior citizen pensioners by 2015

Senator Ralph Recto. INQUIRER file photo

MANILA, Philippines – Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto is urging the government to increase the number of senior citizen pensioners from the current 479, 080 this year to 770,804 in 2015.

Recto said the increase will allow those in the 65- to 76-year-old category to be included in the program for the first time since the law authorizing the grant of the stipend was passed four years ago.

At present he said, the program only covers 77 years olds and above.

An estimate made by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), which administers the program, said that increasing the number pensioners to 770, 804 in 2015 would mean that 274,804 seniors in the 70- to 76-year-old age bracket will be enrolled together with 16,920 in the 65 to 69 age bracket.

Recto admitted that adding almost 300,000 “senior pensioners” will increase the program’s budget from P2.87 billion this year to P4.62 billion next year.

But he said the additional P1.75 billion could be easily absorbed in the P2.6 trillion “indicative budget ceiling” of the 2015 budget, the preparation of which is now in full blast in the executive branch.

“I think there is budget space for the amount needed to expand the beneficiary base of the senior pension program,” the senator said in a statement on Tuesday.

The government, he said, should start reducing its backlog of commitments under Republic Act 9994, which expands benefits senior citizens are entitled to.

While a 2012 census by the DSWD had identified 1,315,584 poor 60 year olds and above who could qualify for the P500 monthly pension, Recto said the government has so far limited its grant to seniors who are 77 years old and above.

“Overall, there is a 5-billion-peso funding gap. We can reduce this gradually by bringing more seniors into the fold of the program,” he said.

RA 9994 defines an “indigent senior citizen” who may qualify for the P500 monthly social pension as someone 60 years old and above who is “frail, sickly, or with disability, and without pension or permanent source of income, compensation or financial assistance from his relatives to support his needs.”

In its “National Household Targeting” census, the DSWD included other economic, social, health, housing information to better identify the indigents truly deserving of the pension.

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