DSWD survey to identify social pension beneficiaries

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is now conducting a nationwide validation survey of elderly people aged 77 and above who can be given social pension.

The survey is being conducted ahead of the second National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR), otherwise known as the Listahanan nationwide survey where the DSWD builds a database of the country’s poorest families most in need of the government’s social assistance programs.

The Listahanan was earlier scheduled to be conducted in the last quarter of 2013, but was moved to the second quarter this year.

Recently, the DSWD was said to have rescheduled the Listahanan either in the third or fourth quarter this year.

The nationwide validation survey will also identify informal settler families living in danger zones, such as waterways, who can be included as beneficiaries of the modified conditional cash transfer program.

The DSWD’s social pension program makes available P500 monthly cash support to any elderly citizen aged 77 and above who is not receiving care or has been abandoned by his or her loved ones and relatives.

The DSWD reportedly issues the stipend on a quarterly basis. As of 2013, the DSWD had 250,000 beneficiaries.

Groups of elderly people earlier had bewailed the P500 cash support for the elderly as too small. They also questioned the age ceiling, making the social pension available to only a small population of the elderly.