Troubled Aging
Kristel Anne Vadal | Spectrum
The silent plea of the elderly is too loud to disdain.
Impassivity has long been associated with the aggravating issue of poor and forsaken elderly care in the country. This heightens the struggles of the Philippine’s gray community who are not financially protected and remain unlisted in any social pension schemes, presumed to provide basic senior needs.
The already pressing issue inflamed and regressed after the pandemic afflicted the sector, and left a complete mayhem to the overall economic position and sectoral state of the country. While those in power struggle to keep their propagandas away from the watchdogs and regularly weave the perfect facade for atrocity, our elderly continuously brawl with financial and medical challenges wringed in their necks.
As of 2023, only 4.1 million from the total 12.2 million Filipino senior citizens are receiving a monthly pension of P500, which is nowhere near enough to support even an individual, to afford a simple, comfortable living.
In line with this, the Commission of Population and Development (CPD) in 2022 reported that nearly half of the overall population of Filipino senior citizens are still working to make ends meet in spite of their deteriorating health. This clearly manifests that social security for the country’s aging community remains underfunded and problematic.
The concern was furtherly proved when the Philippines ranked second worst country for retirement income system among 44 others in 2022’s Mercer’s Global Pension Index, where several economies worldwide are gauged for shortcomings in order to craft best possible reformations for a sustainable retirement system.
This is also the mere reason why several sources tagged the Philippines as one of the worst places for retirees for having poor retirement plans.
For the past years, establishing long-term programs and better social pension schemes has become the challenge and it is scary to think of the high chances of elderly people eligible to get the pension reached their flatlines, waiting to receive what’s rightfully theirs.
In 2022, the Republic Act 11916 or the Social Pension for Indigent Seniors Act lapsed into law, mandating the 100 percent increase from P500 to P1000 monthly stipend to qualified senior citizens in the country.
This was commended as a great legacy of the 18th congress and an avatar of repaying the contributions of the sector who once toiled and energized the country towards progress. However, the full implementation of the law is yet to be achieved once funding becomes available. In short, the imagined increase remains in the Filipino senior citizens’ mind’s eye.
This has to be addressed at speed as we are running out of time. According to the CPD report, the Philippines will soon be an aging population and bearing that in mind, the necessity to create programs for an active, healthier, safer space for the aged is needed now more than ever.
If the current situation is left unattended, many Filipinos, including us, will likely rewrite the struggles of these senior citizens. And unless concrete programs and actions are undertaken, the Philippines will continuously hold the badge of being one of the worst places to retire.
We need no more toleration but action to address this. It is time we break the stigma of leaving the elderly and other marginalized sectors behind. So today, our call is for the law to fully take effect as a response to our aging community.
After all, social pension should be seen as a right, not as a token.
