Angara and our senior citizens

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Angara and our senior citizens
Sunday, 05 11, 2007

The Golden Acres Home for the Aged is a collection of several unpretentious one-storey structures at the back of a mall in Quezon City. Clapboard walls everywhere add to Golden Acres’ non-descript character. Here, 273 elderly men and women receive adequate and real attention from the social workers who treat them as family. They get decent food and a warm bed in remarkably clean living quarters. If there is one well-managed government-run center, this is it.

Yet, there is a lingering sense of boredom and loneliness among the residents. Their eyes are sad, their grizzled faces blank. The only activity that breaks their sleeping and eating routines are the morning walks on the paved pathways of Golden Acres. Even while on these promenades, with the sun still soft and its rays gentle, the hunched, age-beaten figures tell the story of fading, purposeless lives.

In a culture where the elderly hold a lofty, revered place in the family, the stories of the residents of Golden Acres are particularly heart-rending. Neglected, abandoned, literally thrown out, some of the residents were admitted to the center without practically anything on their persons, even a functioning, alert mind. Some came off the streets in rags, literally. I doubt if anyone of them made the choice to live at Golden Acres on his or her own volition. Golden Acres to them means nothing but a life-support system.

In the same disinterested view, the residents of Golden Acres mean nothing but a list of names that have been crossed out in some senator’s address book. Greatly weighted down by their senility to be involved in some other activity such as expressing interest in what’s happening to the rest of the country, they are far too advanced in age to recognize the plight of our elderly.

But not in Sen. Ed Angara’s book. Golden Acres has been the recipient of many of Angara’s beneficence. And Angara has replicated that for the rest of the country, with the enactment of Republic Act 7876 establishing senior citizen centers in all cities and municipalities throughout the country.

Recently, Angara called for the putting up of the Aging Center of the Philippines, to promote the wellness of the elderly. The center would be a medical research and health facility that could help open the window for revolutionary cure of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and osteoporosis. Above all, the center would be an institution that would assure the elderly that old age is not a disease — it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of trials.

The National Census and Statistics Office (NCSO) estimate them at not less than 6 million of the 85 million Filipinos. They are our elderly who have breached 60 years of existence, now more endearingly called “senior citizens” under Republic Act (RA) 7432, otherwise known as the Senior Citizens’ Law of 1992, and more often referred to as the Angara law, after its principal author and sponsor. Every year, about a million are added to this honor roll of senior citizens, according to the NCSO.

Quite appropriately, Angara was given the title “Father of the Senior Citizens” in 1992, when he was yet 57 years old. Now, Angara is reaping the fruits of his law, and has himself never stopped introducing more benefits for our senior citizens for as long as he has been in the Senate.

Under the Angara Law, senior citizens are entitled to a 20-percent discount on the purchase of goods and services, transport fare, funeral and burial services, among others.

The Angara Law, however, is not all about discounts which our senior citizens are now enjoying. It is more than that, for it has become the law around which many initiatives for the elderly, outside of the legislature, now revolve, to make it easier for our senior citizens to age gracefully and comfortably. Angara has seen to that since 1992.

For instance, senior citizens are now exempt from getting a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN). Upon the prodding of Angara, the BIR issued Regulation 1-2007, eliminating the TIN requirement of business establishments for senior citizens to claim sales discounts.

Angara has also called for the increase of the senior citizens’ discount to 34 percent to address the discrepancy caused by the imposition of value-added tax (VAT) on the purchases of medicines and other goods and services. The imposition by pharmacies of the 12-percent VAT on the sale of medicines even on senior citizens, in effect, has prevented the elderly from fully enjoying the benefits of RA 7432: senior citizens are deprived the actual 20-percent discount due to them under the law, as the effective discount is only 8 percent because of the VAT. In the Angara proposal, the discounted rate would now be 34 percent.

Angara, the longest serving senator, has always called for the empowerment of senior citizens. He has been urging families and communities to reaffirm the Filipino tradition of caring for the elderly.

Angara sees his legislative initiatives as just reward for our senior citizens, a repayment for all the services they have rendered. He says we owe it to them, who in their earlier days have made valuable contributions to the country, to assure them of a comfortable life in their twilight years. Thus, in his legislative agenda for the Fourteenth Congress, Angara has a line-up of bills giving more benefits to our senior citizens, such as expanding the coverage of the PhilHealth law, another Angara law, to include more ailments common to our senior citizens, and accord free health insurance benefits to those with an annual income of not more than P120,000.00.

The 6 million among our elderly know whom they have to thank for the benefits they now enjoy. Angara, indeed, has the inside track on their votes, and it should not be too much of an expectation, nay, a surprise, if Angara gets all their votes on Monday.

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