COTABATO CITY — A total of 12,846 indigent elderly residents of Tawi-Tawi province in the far south received a P3,000 pension grant each from the national government, local authorities said on Wednesday.
The pension distribution was channeled through the Ministry of Social Services and Development-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (MSSD-BARMM), which handles the social pension program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for all six BARMM provinces.
“The accumulated pensions released to each recipient covered six months,” Jidday Buat Lucman, a senior information officer of the MSSD-BARMM, told reporters.
She said personnel of their provincial office in Tawi-Tawi and local executives facilitated the payout to beneficiaries from late October to early this month.
The grant of the Citizens Social Pension (SocPen) to qualified beneficiaries is based on Republic Act 9994, the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010. A pensioner is entitled to a P500 monthly SocPen subsidy, which will be raised to P1,000 starting January 2024, as provided for by another law, RA 11916. — John Felix M. Unson