The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
With the proposed Universal Social Pension still awaiting passage in Congress, Senator Loren Legarda is pushing a separate measure that seeks to grant indigent senior citizens a P1,000 monthly stipend for their maintenance medicines.
Through Senate Bill No. 164, or the Monthly Maintenance Medication Support for Senior Citizens Act, Legarda said the program aims to ease the financial burden of elderly Filipinos struggling to afford prescription drugs.
“We are alleviating the burden of our senior citizens by helping them manage these debilitating diseases as they get older,” Legarda explained. “This is to fulfill the government’s mandate to ensure that they have access to affordable healthcare, including the medications necessary for their well-being.”
Legarda, principal author of the Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010, stressed that while discounts on medicines are helpful, they are often insufficient. Under her proposed law, qualified beneficiaries would be issued a maintenance medication support card, which cannot be transferred or converted to cash.“This is to pay homage to those who have toiled and paved the road for all of us; this is a small token of recognition,” she said, adding that the measure affirms the State’s commitment to care for its elderly citizens. TRACY CABRERA