Stricter requirement for seniors’cash aid

CEBU, Philippines -  All the queuing senior citizens would do to register with the Commission on Elections to become Cebu City voters, in the hope that they would later receive city hall’s cash aid, would now just be in vain.

Office of Senior Citizens’ Affairs (OSCA) Chief Rolando Llaguno has announced that the city government is now more stringent in accepting additional senior citizens as cash assistance beneficiaries.

“This is one way of controlling the number of senior citizens tungod kay manganhi sila ug anhi na mamotar sa eleksyon kay naa may (because they just come to Cebu City to register and vote becauce of the) attractive nga financial assistance,” Llaguno told The FREEMAN.

Llaguno said they are back to requiring applicants to submit a certification that they have voted in the 2010 elections, which was an old basic requirement, before the senior citizens becomes a qualified member of OSCA.

“So kana sila nga nagpa-register karon, tanan sila dili ka-avail. If you reach the age 60, but you have consistently voted way back 2010 and down, qualified gyud ka,” he added.

Llaguno said that before, as per Mayor Michael Rama’s directive, they consider applicants who did not have voter’s certification but were established to have been staying in Cebu City though, for at least five years.

“Pero karon, dili na gyud mahimo (That is not allowed anymore). If dili ka registered way back 2010 election, di na gyud ka ka-avail sa cash assistance, including those who chose to waive their rights before,” the OSCA chief said.

Llaguno said that aside from reviving the old requirement, they are controlling the number of senior citizens, in consideration of the City’s budget. There are 58, 563 senior citizens currently registered in the city.

The number, Llaguno said, will definitely decrease because aside from a stricter application process, they would also remove from the list those who are already deceased and those who failed to claim their cash aid for three consecutive distributions, or last December 21, February 8, and May 2.

The OSCA chief further announced that beneficiaries can claim the P2,000 cash aid from the City only until Friday. Deadline for qualified registrants to apply at OSCA is until last week of May, he added.

Meanwhile, the Department of Social Welfare and Development would conduct a special validation for its indigent senior citizens pension program in the entire Central Visayas.

This Friday, May 16, validators from the DSWD, through its Listahanan or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction, would visit initially-listed seniors in the region.

 The special validation aims to assess indigent senior citizens who are already social pensioners but are not included in the Listahanan databank.

Validation also ensures that all potentially poor families are covered in the databank, which is the program’s basis in identifying recipients of social protection programs of the national government.

A total of 7,565 indigent senior citizens will be assessed in Central Visayas. Cebu will assess 3,403 senior citizens; Negros Oriental with 1,817; Bohol with 2,112; and Siquijor with 233.

The agency hired seven area supervisors and thirty one enumerators to conduct the special validation.

Before deployment, the hired field staff will be trained on May 12 to 14. The three-day rigorous training would equip them with the necessary knowledge on effective assessment.

The pension program is one of DSWD’s social protection programs and provides Php500 as monthly stipend for indigent senior citizens.

The ones who would qualify are those 77 years old and above; frail, sickly, or have a disability; not receiving pension from Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System, or Veterans Pension and do not have permanent source of income or regular support from relatives.

The monthly financial assistance aims to improve the living condition of eligible indigent senior citizens to help them in their needs, such as medicines and food.

The second round of household assessment, when more than one million families in the region are targeted, would follow after the conduct of the special validation. (FREEMAN)