AROUND 55,000 elderly residents in Central Visayas are waiting for a vacant slot in the social pension program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) so they can join the program and start receiving a monthly pension of P500.
Daisy Lor, social pension focal head of DSWD Central Visayas (DSWD 7), said the money will be given twice a year or once every semester.
But she clarified that only indigent senior citizens who do not receive any pension from government institutions like the Social Security System (SSS) and Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), as well as those who are unemployed and do not have children to support them, will be accepted into the social pension program because their funds are limited.
As part of the program, the local government units had been previously tasked to identify the indigent senior citizens in their respective areas.
"Dili man gyud tanan ma-enroll nato sa social pension kay limited raman ang slot ini, mao nga atong gitahasan ang mga LGUs sa pag-identify sa mga deserving nga senior citizens," Lor said.
(We would not be able to enroll everyone in the social pension because the slot is limited, therefore we entrusted the LGUs to identify the deserving senior residents).
Currently, there are 299,737 social pensioners in the Central Visayas.
The DSWD 7 hoped that their main office would create more openings so they could take in more elderly people who are in need.