TAGUM CITY- Tagumenyo senior citizens that number to a hundred recently found themselves fortunate to finally be lifted off the waitlist maintained by local government unit of Tagum’s City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO) in relation to who may become eligible for Social Pension.

The waitlist contains the names of Tagumenyos in their twilight years who have not been considered as beneficiaries of the social pension funded and implemented by the national government though the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) due mainly to the priority age bracket set in the guidelines for the implementation of the said pension.

The old-aged citizens of the city, who, on Friday, August 10, 2018, were handed the amount of three thousand pesos (Php 3,000) as social pension for the first and second quarter of the current year, were made this year’s beneficiaries of the LGU-Tagum funded social pension based upon the recommendation of the Barangay Senior Citizens’ Coordinator.

The social pension, which was conceived by the national government, is adopted as a program by the LGU as a means of augmenting the medical as well as the basic needs of the senior citizens living in Tagum while waiting to be included in the national budget of the DSWD.

The local government has allocated an annual budget of Php 600,000 from its local funds to support the subsistence and physical well-being of one hundred Tagumenyo elderlies aged 65 years old and older who are living along the line of indigence with no permanent source of income or compensation, no financial assistance or support from relatives and no pension from the Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System, Armed Forces and Police Mutual Benefit Association.

Notably, the 100 individuals who benefitted from the locally funded social pension program will only receive their annuity from the city government for the four quarters of the current year as their inclusion to next year’s budget of the DSWD-funded pension will be made a priority by the CSWDO.

The program was implemented by the City during the first term of Mayor Allan L Rellon by virtue of City Ordinance No. 686, s-2015, or the Expanded Senior Citizens Ordinance of the City of Tagum which was enacted to protect the rights and ensure that all privileges provided by law are given to the elderlies of Tagum. CIO-Tagum City