More solo parents may soon receive additional benefits under the expanded implementing rules and regulations of the Expanded Solo Parents’ Welfare Act.
Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary Erwin Tulfo, with the other members of the inter-agency coordination and monitoring committee that drafted the implementing guidelines of the said law, recently signed the IRR of Republic Act 11861 which amends RA 8972 or the Solo Parents’ Welfare Act of 2000.
The new IRR of the Act that lapsed into law on 4 June expands the benefits afforded by the law to every solo parent.
CamSur Rep. LRay Villafuerte, a co-author of RA 11861, said the additional benefits are food price discounts, tax exemptions, free legal aid and medical care, tuition subsidies, parental leaves, and other privileges.
Solo parents who earn a minimum wage or less and do not receive any other government cash assistance program will receive a monthly cash support of P1,000 from their respective local government units under the new law, which is set to go into effect in a month.
The legislator explained that the grant of the P1,000 monthly pension and all other benefits in addition to those provided in RA 8972 would put flesh to RA 11861’s declared policy for the state to foster a just and dynamic social order that ensures the nation’s prosperity and independence.
It would also lift people out of poverty through policies that promote full employment, a rising standard of living, and a better quality of life, according to the solon.
Villafuerte emphasized that this expanded social protection program for single parents is opportune, given that many single dads and moms were likely on last year’s larger list of Filipinos living below the poverty line.
According to a recent report from the Philippine Statistical Authority, the 2021 Family Income and Expenditure Survey of 165,029 families nationwide revealed that 19.99 million Filipinos were living in poverty last year, up 2.3 million from the 17.67 million people who were identified during the same period in 2018, resulting in an increase in the poverty rate from 16.6 percent to 18.1 percent.