State pensions released to 12,846 Tawi-Tawi residents
TIMRA Reports • 17:00 PM Wed Dec 13, 2023
482
By:
John Felix Unson
About 90 percent of the Social Pension beneficiaries in Tawi-Tawi are elderly men and women. (From MSSD-BARMM)
COTABATO CITY - Up to 12,846 indigent elderly residents of Tawi-Tawi province in the far south received a P3,000 pension grant each from the national government, channeled through a Bangsamoro social welfare agency.
The Ministry of Social Services and Development-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is the conduit for all of BARMM’s six provinces of the social pension program of the central office of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Jidday Buat Lucman, a senior information staff of MSSD-BARMM told reporters on Wednesday that personnel of their provincial office in Tawi-Tawi and local executives cooperated in facilitating the release of the pensions to 12,846 beneficiaries in the province in payouts from late October to early this month.
The grant of the Citizens Social Pension, or SocPen to qualified beneficiaries, is based on a congressional mandate, the Republic Act 9994, also known as the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010. A pensioner is entitled to a P500 monthly SocPen subsidy, which will become P1,000 monthly starting January 2024, as provided by another law, RA 11916.
“The accumulated pensions released to each recipient covered six months,” Lucman said.
Lucman said the regional officials of DSWD-BARMM are grateful to the ministry’s provincial personnel and local executives for cooperating in releasing the SocPen grants to beneficiaries in Tawi-Tawi.