Enforcement of discount, fast lane for seniors urged

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu City Councilor Edgardo Labella wants that the Department of Trade and Industry will strictly monitor the compliance of public institutions and private business establishments in giving 20 percent discounts to senior citizens and to provide express lanes for the elderly in the hospitals, drugstores and in the malls.

Labella, chairman of the committee on laws of the City Council, has reminded all pharmacy and drugstore owners that their actuations of posting notices and signs in their establishments telling the customers that access to the 20 percent discount can be availed only for cash purchases, and not through credit cards, is contrary to law.

He said that the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the organization of businessmen here in the city, should revisit the provisions of the Expanded Senior Citizens Act to find out that the refusal to grant the full 20 percent discount to senior citizens on drug and medicine purchases through credit cards was considered by the National Coordinating and Monitoring Board as a violation of Republic Act 9257, or the Act granting additional benefits and privileges to senior citizens.

Labella, a lawyer by profession, explained that some other violations of the pharmacy owners is the limiting of the purchase of discountable drugs and medicines to certain weekdays only, such that the senior citizens cannot avail them on other days; and also restricting the purchase time or period for senior citizens to a particular hour as well as refusing to grant discount after certain hours.

He added that the owners of malls, hospital, drugstores and similar business establishments should concretize their corporate social responsibility by facilitating a hassle-free grant of the discounts to our elderly persons. — Rene U. Borromeo/MEEV   (FREEMAN NEWS)