From ₱500, beneficiaries of the Social Pension for Indigent Senior Citizens will be receiving ₱1,000 per month starting this January, the Department of Social Welfare and Development brought the good news on Wednesday.

In an interview, a DSWD key official said that over four million elderlies will benefit from this program, noting that this number is lacking compared to the actual number of senior citizens in the country.

“More than four million senior citizens nationwide are our beneficiaries here, and we know that’s still a little bit short. Many have actually applied to our social pension fund because we know that there are many of our senior citizens,” said DSWD Usec. Eduardo Punay.

“In the data of the National Commission for Senior Citizens, more than 12 million are [listed] among our senior citizens,” he added.

Punay, however, clarified that only those registered as indigent senior citizens in their system will be granted this benefit.

The increase in monthly pension follows after the DSWD received more government funding for their SPIC program.

In this year’s ₱5.768 trillion national budget, ₱49.81 billion is allocated for the said program, a double amount compared to the ₱25.3 billion allotted in the 2023 General Appropriations Act.

According to the state’s social welfare agency, indigent senior citizens or social pensioners refer to qualified elderly who are frail, sickly, or with a disability and without a pension or permanent source of income, or regular support from his/her relatives to meet his/her basic needs, as determined by the DSWD National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction.