Gov’t sets aside P1.2B to fund social pension

MANILA, Philippines—Some 198,000 indigent elderly will each receive a monthly pension of P500 this year after the government earmarked P1.2 billion for this segment of the population.

The Department of Budget and Management said the amount is 38 percent higher than the P871 million given out last year to senior citizens aged 75 and older.

Also, the number of beneficiaries rose by 43 percent to 198,370 from the previous year’s 138,960.

Under the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010, indigent senior citizens are eligible to receive social pension to help them with their basic needs, such as food and medicine.

Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad said the allocation to the social pension for indigent senior citizens formed part of the P568.6 billion in the 2012 national budget set aside for poverty reduction and social services.

“That’s about 32 percent of the P1.816-trillion budget, the biggest share among all other sectors funded by the national expenditure plan,” Abad said.

He added that spending such amount on poverty alleviation should help reduce poverty incidence to 16.6 percent, allowing the country to meet its key Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

The MDGs are a set of commitments with the United Nations to eradicate poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality in education, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS and ensure environmental sustainability by 2015.

Also, part of this year’s anti-poverty kit is a P39.8-billion budget for the conditional cash transfer scheme dubbed Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

The amount is an increase of 42.6 percent from last year’s budget.

In 2012, the 4Ps will cover 3 million indigent households compared with 2.3 million last year.

Further, the Department of Education budget increased by 15.2 percent to P238.8 billion. It will fund the construction of more classrooms and support the reformed basic education curriculum, apart from the purchase of textbooks.

Abad, a former Education secretary, reiterated that the DepEd enjoys the largest budgetary increase in more than a decade.

He added that the Department of Health’s (DoH) budget also increased by 34 percent to P44.4 billion, to provide health insurance premium subsidies for 5.2 million indigent households.

With the bigger budget, DoH may send about 13,000 doctors, nurses and midwives to provide medical services across the country.