Culion, Palawan –Over 100 senior citizens in this municipality received a Php6,000- financial assistance through the Social Pension (SocPen) program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), last March 04, 2015.

In the continuous effort to provide social protection programs to all sectors of the society, DSWD MiMaRoPa started its distribution of the monthly stipend for the identified senior citizen beneficiaries of the region. According to Nerissa Nario, Social Pension Focal of the region, the department distributed the entire subsidy for the year 2014, which has previously been done on a quarterly basis. “We are distributing the entire year’s subsidy at once to enable to provide for their medical and basic needs,” she said.

DSWD have also paid all beneficiaries who have failed to receive their subsidy for the year 2013, in full. “Malaking halaga ito para sa mga katulad naming matanda na at wala ng kakayahang magtrabaho,” said Virginia Abina, 83 years old. She further added that the amount she received will be used for her medicinal needs and food supplements.

Expanding the coverage

The department is planning to reduce the age requirement for social pensioners to 75 years old to include more beneficiaries this year. Listahanan, the DSWD’s arm that identifies beneficiaries for its program is set to conduct the second round validation on the second quarter of the year. “We are fully confident that the number of beneficiaries for social pension will increase after the completion of the second round validation,” said Nario.

There are more than 28,000 pensioners in the region to date and the number is expected to increase by more than 10,000 this year.###