Rep. Rodolfo Ordanes of the Senior Citizen partylist on Wednesday said several agencies in the executive departments can raise indigency limits for availing of government charity social services, saying that the existing rates are too low.
Ordanes asked the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Department of Interior and Local Government, and the Department of Health to raise the new minimum for indigency qualification to either the minimum wage rates or the nontaxable income rate.
“With prices of most goods and services being so high now, the purchasing power of minimum wage earners is severely eroded, minimum wage earners no longer have disposable income left after spending for their daily commute to work and food,” Ordanes said in a statement.
“Thus they can barely send their children to school, and worse, they do not have reserve money for the needs of household members who are sick, senior, PWD, or with special needs,” he added.
He said most indigency standards and qualifications can be revised upward administratively, thus there is no need for new laws.
Under the Universal Health Care Act, an ‘indigent’ is a person who has no visible means of income, or whose income is insufficient for the subsistence of his family, as identified by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) based on specific criteria..”