SEN. Juan Edgardo Angara yesterday urged the Department of Social Welfare and Development to resolve the issues in delays of distribution of social pensions for indigent senior citizens.
This was after the DSWD, during the budget hearing on its proposed budget for next year held weeks back, said the number of indigent senior citizens waitlisted for the agency’s social pension program increased to around 466,000 from 228,000.
The DSWD’s social pension program for indigent senior citizens is an additional government assistance mandated by the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2022.
Angara, one of the authors of RA 11916 or the law that doubled the social pension for indigent citizens to P12,000 a year, said the cash assistance is very important to the indigent seniors who have nothing to rely on for their daily needs.
He said around P50 billion is allocated under the proposed DSWD budget for next year for the P1,000 a month social pension of over 4 million indigents senior citizens.
During interpellations of the DSWD budget, it was disclosed that the backlog in the distribution of the social pension has reached about P5 billion.
Angara said that the budget for social pension for seniors has been at P25 billion for the past three years.
“For indigents seniors, the monthly social pension would help a lot as an augmentation to their daily expenses and for their medical needs. We are inquiring into the causes of delays and appealing to the DSWD to resolve this at the soonest possible time,” Angara said.
SENIOR DISCOUNTS
Angara reminded businesses to honor the legally mandated discounts and privileges for seniors after reports said that there are still some establishments which do not provide these for one reason or another.
He made the call after a recent report involving a senior citizen who filed a complaint against a hotel for allegedly refusing to grant her the 20 percent discount and exemption from the value-added tax for her stay at the establishment since according to the management, she was already provided a promotional rate.
The hotel guest asked the management to present proof that the promotion was approved by the Department of Trade and Industry as required by the Consumer Act of the Philippines, but to no avail.
“These benefits and privileges are being provided to senior citizens and also to persons with disabilities to provide them with some financial relief when availing goods and services for their consumption. Their circumstances, more often than not, are significantly different from the rest of society and so we in Congress saw it fit to provide them with such benefits,” he said.
Apart from RA 11916, Angara is also an author of RA 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizen’s Act that grants additional benefits and privileges to seniors on top of what is already being provided under the original Senior Citizen’s Act (RA 7432).
The original law was authored by Angara’s father, the late Senate President Edgardo Angara, that paved the way for the grant of a 20 percent discount on goods and services to seniors.
Over a decade later, RA 9994 was enacted, providing seniors with an exemption from the value added tax on the sale of certain goods and services on top of the 20 percent discount.
“We appeal to our partners in the private sector to honor all valid transactions of our seniors and for the concerned agencies in government to enforce the applicable laws,” Angara said
Social Welfare Assistant Secretary and spokesman Romel Lopez said the DSWD has completed the 2023 social pension payout for close to 42,000 indigent senior citizens from Antique.
“The DSWD has disbursed and completed the release of the first and second semester pension to some 41,927 indigent senior citizens in the province,” Lopez said.
He said DSWD Field Office-VI in Western Visayas was able to complete the first semester payout in April while the second semester payout started in October. — With Jocelyn Montemayor
