MANILA, Philippines — The government will nearly double to P50 billion the social pension fund for indigent senior citizens next year.
In the record P5.768-trillion 2024 National Expenditure Program, some P49.81 billion has been allocated to fund the social pension of indigent senior citizens.
This is a 97 percent surge from this year’s budget of P25.3 billion.
“This will cover the increased government monthly allowance of P1,000 for more than four million indigent senior citizens who are not part of the pension system,” Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said.
The Social Pension for Indigent Seniors Act, which became a law in July 2022, doubled the monthly pension from P500 to P1,000 per validated indigent senior citizen under the Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens (SPISC) program.
For 2024, the social services sector will get P2.183 trillion or 37.9 percent of the budget.
The SPISC program, which started in 2011 through the Expanded Senior Citizens Act, aims to augment the daily expenses and other medical needs of indigent senior citizens who are frail, sickly or with disability, with no regular income or support from family and those without pension from private or government institutions.
It also targets to reduce the incidence of hunger and protect senior citizens from neglect, abuse, deprivation and natural and man-made disasters.