Cagayan de Oro City – 19,417 senior citizens in Northern Mindanao are now enjoying the benefits of the Social Pension provided by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. This was issued by the DSWD in its first quarter report, revealing that 3,198 are coming from Bukidnon, 843 from Camiguin, 4,910 from Lanao del Norte, 5,304 from Misamis Occidental, and 5,162 from Misamis Oriental.

The Social Pension is additional government assistance in the amount of Five Hundred Pesos (P500.00) monthly stipend to augment the daily subsistence and other medical needs of senior citizens.

Qualified senior citizens are those who are considered frail, sickly, or with disability; without pension from private and government institutions; without permanent source of income, compensation or financial assistance from his or her relatives to support his or her basic needs.

The Social Pension targets those citizens who are under the DSWD’s Listahanan – the national government’s targeting system that identifies who and where the poor are in the country. The same program serves those who are 77 years old and above.

The Social Pension is one of the provisions under Section 5 of Republic Act 9994 otherwise known as the “Expanded Senior Citizen Act of 2010.”

Written by Charmaine P. Tadlas, DSWD