BACOLOD CITY—The city government here announced on Thursday the grant of social pension to qualified senior citizens starting this month as provided in the ordinance approved in October last year.
Those qualified will receive financial assistance of P500 a month or a total of P6,000 a year, the statement said. To avail of the benefit, the senior citizen must present proof of identity or residence, and status of indigency.
Councilor Celia Flor, chair of the committee on senior citizens and veterans affairs, said the city’s database on senior citizens is being updated to determine the actual number of recipients.
In his first 100 days report last October, Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez said this will be the first time the city government is providing social pensions to an estimated 12,000 elderly.
Those who can avail themselves of the social pension are senior citizens who do not receive any form of contributory pension, as well as individuals receiving not more than P5,000 monthly from a contributory pension such as Government Service Insurance System, Philippine Veterans Affairs Office and Social Security System and the social pension program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Considered indigent are senior citizens with no permanent source of income, compensation, or financial assistance from relatives to support his/her basic needs; and must be a registered voter and a resident of the city for at least a year.
Meanwhile, the city government started using QR (quick response) code to monitor the attendance and assignments of job order (JO) workers hired for the implementation of various projects and programs starting January this year. As of Tuesday, some 2,700 workers have been hired, and each is required to secure an identification card with a QR code that stores the encoded personal and work information of the cardholder, which will be scanned when they report for duty.
“The JO worker will be given an ID with a QR code. The QR code will be used as their ‘time in, time out’ system. At the moment, that is what we are using, but eventually we will have an automated daily time record so that we will know exactly if they are working at their respective posts or not,” Mayor Alfredo Abelardo Benitez said.
He added that all JO employees are also being enrolled in an automated teller machine (ATM) account with the Land Bank of the Philippines for the payment of their salaries to address the long lines and long waiting time during payday.
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