The Philippine government’s deferment of the full implementation of a law that provides pensions to the elderly is biased against the poor, says a senior citizen’s organization.

The government had announced it could only release 871 million pesos (US$19.64 million) next year. This is a fraction of the 7 billion required annual funding for a 500-peso elderly monthly pension as provided by law.

Only those 80 years old and above now qualify for the pension in 2011 or about 145,150 senior citizens, as opposed to the estimated 4.1 million elderly who are 60 years and older and who should be receiving the pension.

"I’m quite disappointed," said Ed Gerlock of the NGO Coalition of Services of the Elderly (COSE). He said most of the elderly are below 80 years old.

"Poor people don’t live to be 80 years old. There are going to be very few desperately poor 80-year-olds," he said.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad earlier said that due to financial difficulties, the government decided to allocate 871 million pesos in next year’s national budget for the elderly.

Previous estimates by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) put the required funding at 7 billion pesos per year.

“Despite our budget difficulty, we still allocated an amount as our symbolic concern for the elderly,” Abad said.

He said the government was actually hoping to include a million of the elderly in the 500-peso monthly pension program, the estimated number of indigent seniors, but could only manage to cover a little over 10 percent of them.

Abad said the budget allocation could be supplemented within the next year to bring the total coverage to 1 million elderly and benefit those 60 years and above.

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