IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/phd/dpaper/dp_2021-31.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

SocPen Beyond Ten: A Process Evaluation of the DSWD Social Pension (SocPen) Program for Indigent Senior Citizens amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Albert, Jose Ramon G.
  • Monje, Jennifer D.
  • Muñoz, Mika S.

Abstract

Since 2011, the government, through the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), has implemented the Social Pension (SocPen) Program which gives a noncontributory monthly pension of PHP 500 to qualified seniors, i.e., indigent Filipinos aged 60 and above. Initially, the DSWD had sought to provide assistance to 1.2 million indigent senior citizens identified by the Listahanan, on a PHP 8.71 billion budget allocation. Insufficient funds had prompted the department to realistically target only 138,960 seniors at program inception, though the actual served were 140,576 senior citizens with an actual budget of PHP 843.5million. Budget allocation for the SocPen has increased exponentially since program inception to over PHP 23.4 billion in 2021. With this 2,540 percent jump of a budget in a span of 10 years, the 2021 physical target has also increased to 3,835,066 senior citizens, a 2,634 percent increase. The 2020 physical target for SocPen is nearly two-fifths (37.8%) of senior citizens. This study describes the SocPen’s design and current implementation processes, especially in the wake of Covid-19, and attempts to increase the financial assistance and coverage of beneficiaries. The examination will also look into the recent experience of DSWD with the Social Amelioration program, which included cash transfers for SocPen beneficiaries and other vulnerable populations. While overall the program is well-intentioned and is welcomed by seniors, and the SocPen has undergone some changes in response to criticisms of several external evaluations, implementation deficits persist. These need to be addressed, especially as the SocPen is currently one of the largest social protection programs of the government, and has the potential to significantly impact the lives of elderly indigent beneficiaries. Comments to this paper are welcome within 60 days from the date of posting. Email publications@pids.gov.ph

Suggested Citation

  • Albert, Jose Ramon G. & Monje, Jennifer D. & Muñoz, Mika S., 2021. "SocPen Beyond Ten: A Process Evaluation of the DSWD Social Pension (SocPen) Program for Indigent Senior Citizens amid the COVID-19 Pandemic," Discussion Papers DP 2021-31, Philippine Institute for Development Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2021-31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.pids.gov.ph/publication/discussion-papers/socpen-beyond-ten-a-process-evaluation-of-the-dswd-social-pension-socpen-program-for-indigent-senior-citizens-amid-the-covid-19-pandemic
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    process evaluation; social pension; senior citizens; indigent; SocPen; vulnerable population; social protection;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:phd:dpaper:dp_2021-31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Aniceto Orbeta (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/pidgvph.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.