Government hit for non-issuance of indigent senior citizens’ pensions

MANILA, Philippines - The camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay hit yesterday the government for the non-issuance of pensions of more than 55,000 indigent senior citizens in 2014. 

Joey Salgado, Binay’s spokesperson for media affairs, said 55,496 indigent senior citizens in Metro Manila, Bicol, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas, SOCCSKSARGEN and Caraga did not receive their pensions amounting to P335.738 million in 2014. 

“The failure of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to distribute the funds to our senior citizens defeated the purpose of the program called Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens (SPISC), which was supposed to help make life better for our elders who are very close to the Vice President’s heart,” Salgado said. 

Citing the 2014 report of the Commission on Audit (COA) on DSWD, Salgado said that 48 percent of the beneficiaries did not get the government assistance. Of the 116,637 SPISC beneficiaries, 55,496 failed to claim their pension amounting to P335.738 million.

 Salgado said the Vice President urges the DSWD to improve its system to ensure the immediate release of cash grants to senior citizens to ensure they are able to use the funds for their medical and other needs, and to avoid loss of funds. 

The COA report also showed that there were delays in the release of the cash grants to beneficiaries, according to Salgado.

 In Eastern Visayas, no pensioner got the cash grant when there was a fund allotment of P19.9 million.

In SOCCSKSARGEN, out of 39,615 pensioners, 8,743 failed to claim their cash grant totaling P52.458 million.

 In Caraga, no pensioner got a cash grant but there was a fund allotment of P6.640 million.