The Social Pension for Senior Citizen is a program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) that provides cash assistance of Five Hundred (PhP 500) as monthly stipend to indigent senior citizens. This in accordance with DSWD Administrative Order No. 15 and as mandated by Republic Act no. 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010.

In calendar year 2012, the Social Pension was implemented by DSWD through cash payout to the beneficiaries. The cash requirements for the payout were funded by means of a cash advance drawn by the Special Disbursing Officers (SDO’s) and the payout was administered together with the DSWD Field Offices through the Regional Social Pension Unit (RSPU) staff, City/Municipal Social Welfare and Development Office ( C/MSWDO) and Office of the Senior Citizens Affair (OSCA). To fast track the distribution of the cash grant, other LGU’s adopted the fund transfer and this has proven to be effective.

However, these are some social pensioners who were not able to attend on scheduled payout hence door to door delivery scheme will be adopted. To implement this, the department has inked Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Philippine Veterans Bank as the service provider.

According DSWD Director Arnel Garcia this scheme aims to ensure the timely delivery of grants/payments to the beneficiary and to protect the staff from the risk of bringing huge amount of money during cash payout.

In Bicol, there are 89, 839 social pensioners. Out of this number 31, 692 pensioners will benefit from the door to door delivery of the cash grant which covers 49 local government units (LGU’s) since the rest of the pensioners were paid direct by the respective local government units under fund transfer. An amount of 3.1 million will be the cost of service for the servicing bank who in turn has the Banking Training Institute as conduit. The latter will be responsible for the delivery of cash grant to the social pensioners for every successful delivery, the courier will be paid P 100.00 each.

For the 2nd and 3rd quarter, 89, 839 social pensioners from 114 LGU’s will be receiving their cash grant at this respective homes. There is an allocation of 134, 758, 500 as a servicing fee. .# # #eejerusalem