The House Committee on Senior Citizens approved on Tuesday a substitute bill seeking to grant a universal social pension to all senior citizens, including pensioners of the Social Security System (SSS) and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), who are currently excluded from receiving a P1,000 monthly stipend.

Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo, one of the proponents of the measure, announced the approval of the committee report, which contains the substitute measure, a consolidation of several bills on the proposed Universal Social Pension for Senior Citizens Act. 

The bill seeks to amend Republic Act 11916, which increases the social pension of indigent senior citizens to P1,000 monthly. 

Under the law, only senior citizens without existing pensions are eligible for the P1,000 monthly stipend, effectively excluding SSS and GSIS pensioners from coverage. 

The approved substitute bill seeks to address this gap by expanding coverage and making the social pension mandatory for all senior citizens, regardless of whether they receive other pensions. 

Quimbo underscored that many elderly Filipinos remain providers or contributors to household expenses despite having little or no regular income, highlighting the pressing need to amend the law. The current GSIS and SSS pensions, which range from roughly P5,000 to P2,000, depending on salary history, are also insufficient to cover the daily and medical needs of senior citizens.

“Why are we penalizing those who worked and supported themselves during their youth? It is unfair to penalize those who contributed to the nation through taxes while they were working.  Excluding them from the social pension is discriminatory. We need to amend that,” Quimbo asserted.

“Thus, we are extending this universal benefit to honor all our senior citizens for their societal contributions and help them meet their needs with dignity and peace of mind.” 

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that there were 9.2 million senior citizens, or those aged 60 and above, as of 2020.  A study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies estimates that the proportion of Filipinos aged 60 and above will increase to 11.4 percent by 2030 and 15.9 percent by 2045. 

The approved bill will be forwarded to the House plenary for further deliberations to hurdle the second and final readings. 

The House passed a similar measure in the previous 19th Congress, but its counterpart measure in the Senate languished at the committee level.