Recto: Don’t touch the increase for senior citizens’ pension

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto appealed yesterday to the Senate-House of Representatives bicameral conference committee not to touch the P2.5 billion increase for the country’s senior citizens that senators had added to the proposed 2016 P3.002 trillion national budget.

Recto made the appeal as both appeals failed to meet yesterday to iron out differing provisions of the proposed 2016 national budget because of the lack of matrices to help legislators in discussing the various provisions of the budget.

The bicameral conference committee was expected to meet ‘’later this week’’ after the secretariat has completed their individual matrix.

The Senate panel is headed by Sen. Loren Legarda, chairperson of the Senate Finance Committee. Her House counterpart is Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Recto who is up for reelection said senators increased the appropriation for financial aid to senior citizens to P10 billion, from the P7.51 billion proposed by Malacañang and later approved by the House.

The increase, according to Recto, would allow around 428,000 more senior citizens to receive the P6,000 annual aid, or to 1,594,224 from the proposed 1,182,914.

The increase was one of the amendments Recto proposed as chairman of the Senate Finance subcommittee which reviews the budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

It is the DSWD which runs what is officially called the Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens Program.

“I would like to correct my earlier statement that the amendment was not carried in the approved Senate bill,” Recto said.

Recto said the Senate increased the budget for the program after advocacy groups for senior citizens alleged that DSWD’s count of beneficiaries left out nearly half-a-million senior citizens who qualify for the pension under the law.

After reviewing its data base, the DSWD recomputed the number of beneficiaries, and joined NGOs in calling for an increase.

“This stemmed from the policy that all indigent seniors 60 years old and above must be covered by the proposed allocation for 2016. If the ‘No Senior Left Behind’ principle will be followed, then the budget must be adjusted,” Recto said.

Recto pointed out that the grant of a monthly pension to “economically disadvantaged” seniors is mandated by Republic Act (RA) 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010.

An “indigent senior citizen” in the contemplation of RA 9994 is someone who is 60 years old and above who is “frail, sickly, or with disability, and without pension or permanent source of income, compensation or financial assistance from his relatives to support his needs.” (Mario B. Casayuran)