About 7,000 elders in Taguig have benefitted from the city government’s cash gift program for senior citizens in the first three months of 2018.
One of them was 76-year-old Nelita Amores, who could not contain her happiness upon receiving her birthday cash gift.
The P4,000 she received was eight times the amount she used to get on her birthdays since 2008.
“I’m happy…I’m just really happy,” Amores, a resident of Barangay Ususan, said, as she claimed the amount with her grandson at the City Social Welfare Development Office.
For Nanay Nelita, who no longer works, the cash gift could be one of the best gifts she could ever receive. She said the money, after all, could be used for the purchase of her medicines, and to address her other needs.
The cash gift distribution is done all year round.
Ramonita Jordan, head of the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs, said the birthday cash gift has been increased under Ordinance No. 25 series of 2017.
Under the ordinance, senior citizens are now receiving P3,000, P4,000 and P5,000 as birthday cash gifts, depending on the age bracket they fall under—the 60-to-69 bracket, the 70-to-79 bracket, and the 80-and-above bracket, respectively.
The increase is the second since the City Council, through City Ordinance No. 09, made compulsory the distribution of P500 monetary gifts to the elderly during their birthdays in 2008.
The first was in 2013, when the P500 was increased to P1,000.
Aside from the birthday cash gifts, the senior citizens are given a P1,500 social pension that is distributed quarterly.
Jordan said centenarians living in the city are even given P100,000 and continue to receive the same amount every year after their 100th birthday.
Other programs for the elderly in Taguig include a house-to-house delivery of free maintenance medicines for those with diabetes, high blood and asthma the TLC Home Care Service, which allows the elderly to experience free nursing services at the comfort of their homes; and the Oplan Linaw program, which allows grandmas and grandpas to avail of free eye checkups and prescription glasses.
The local government also provides wheelchairs and canes to the city’s elders.