What our senior citizens really need

Over the past few years, a number of bills has been introduced in Congress to amend the Centenarians Act of 2016, that grants P100,000 to a Filipino senior citizen residing anywhere in the world upon reaching the age of 100.

The law has always seemed a bit superfluous, mainly because it does not ensure that the centenarian actually receives the money and will be given the right to decide what to do with it. Still, the cash gift is something that the immediate family members can appreciate, and hopefully will spend for the centenarian’s needs until death do them part.

The Centenarian Act is not all that bad, though. When it lapsed into law during the first month of former President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, the law stipulated that centenarians would receive a letter of felicitation from no other than the President of the Republic of the Philippines congratulating him or her for his 100th year.

Henceforth too, starting in 2016, the first Sunday of October became National Respect for Centenarians Day. In addition, local governments are mandated to give a plaque of recognition and cash incentive to the resident who turned 100 years old during that fiscal year.

Aging population

While turning 100 is a feat by itself, the four decades leading to celebrating the 100th year deserves more attention by our government. We are already an aging population, although not quite as extreme as Japan where 29 percent of the population is now 65 years and older, and where demographic studies show that its population could shrink to more than half by 2100.

Still, the number of senior citizens in the Philippines is growing, and this trend is not expected to change much. According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the number of Filipinos aged 60 years and above has doubled to 9.22 million in 2020 from only 4.6 million in 2000. The Population Commission projects that 14 percent of the population 12 years from now will be senior citizens from the current 8.5 percent .

The phenomenon of an aging population is new to the country, as our government has been more concerned in the past with overpopulation issues caused by relatively high numbers of new births. Nowadays, with fertility rates dropping, the trend towards a population of aging people is believable.

Inability to live well

The biggest problem of our aging population is the inability to live well. The number of indigent seniors receiving a social pension of P1,000 a month from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is at 4.1 million, which already represents about a third of the total number of Filipino senior citizens today.

Many of the indigent seniors survive by living with their children, and “earn their keep” by taking care of the house and their grandchildren. Living with the immediate family, however, can be a blessing and a bane depending on how much assets senior citizens bring into their retirement.

Thus, in the case of indigent seniors who have lived their most productive lives in rentals, their children who do not earn enough are less inclined to take them in. While there are still few senior citizens who have the option to live on their own, the remaining others often express the desire to move out of the rented homes of their children.

We will see more indigent seniors in the coming years, products of poor households who have grown old without adequate social security protection in their retirement, and with little or no savings to tide them over for another two or three decades.

The government must seriously consider building public nursing homes where elders may find the most basic needs of life: a roof over their heads, a dry bed to sleep in, water to keep clean, and electricity for simple lighting needs.

Employment opportunities

Many seniors well into their 70s are still productive. They can take on a variety of menial jobs like street sweeping, office cleaning, and doing nightly patrols in the barangays. Some can do more or even learn new skills.

Like in many aging economies, governments are encouraging the private sector to consider taking on programs that will give jobs fit for senior citizens. Tax breaks should be worked out for companies that are able to break free from the bias of hiring old people.

The government must seriously assess retirement programs available to the current mainstream work force. If our young people today are not prepared to save up for their decades of old age, the numbers of indigent seniors in the coming years will only bring about serious social problems.

Caring for health needs

Particularly, the retirement benefits made available by the SSS are an insult to all the years of hard work that employees in the private sector put in. The best monthly pension that a retiree today can get is P17,000, and will likely not be enough to pay for the medicines that need to be taken for the lifestyle ailments contracted while working.

One cannot but stress the need for better access to socialized healthcare for our elders. Giving a million pesos to anyone who reaches 101 in age, as proposed in a bill amending the Centenarians Act, could be put to better use if channeled to indigent seniors’ healthcare while still in their 60s, 70s or 80s.

Even the immediate family members who take care of the elders will agree that it will be far more useful.

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