Indigent seniors to get pension

MANILA, Philippines –  Indigent senior citizens aged 80 and above will receive a monthly pension of P500 starting next year as part of the Expanded Senior Citizens Act, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said yesterday.

Soliman said the funds for the social pension of some 4.3 million poor senior citizens were included in the agency’s proposed 2011 budget amounting to P34.2 billion.

She earlier said that the government is likely to spend roughly P7 billion annually for the social pensions of the indigent elderly.

Republic Act 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act, signed by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last Feb. 16, exempts senior citizens from the value added tax (VAT).

The law grants a 20-percent discount for senior citizens on purchases of food and medicine, as well as other services in restaurants and movie houses.

Senior citizens have only been able to enjoy eight percent of the supposed 20-percent discount because of the 12-percent VAT.

Soliman said they are studying the possibility of implementing the five-percent discount on electric and water bills of selected elderly next month instead of December.

Under the law, senior citizens will also get a five-percent discount on electric and water consumption, provided that the meters for these utilities are registered under their names and usage is below 100 kilowatt-hours for electricity and 30 cubic meters for water. –Helen Flores (The Philippine Star)