WHO, NCSC praise Paranaque as Model Age-Friendly City

I was in Tagaytay City a few days back to cover the two-day Age-Friendly Forum and Planning Workshop hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Held at the fabulous Casiana Hotel in the scenic Tagaytay, the two-day event was jointly organized by Paranaque City and WHO Western Pacific Regional Office.

The event was aimed at sharing Paranaque barangays’ best practices and programs in establishing an age-friendly community to include initiatives in health, social welfare and development. 

Earlier in day one, the National Commission of Senior Citizens (NCSC) played a significant role in sharing its plans and programs for the country’s elderly.

NCSC Chairman Franklin Quijano vividly discussed NCSC’s programs for the senior citizens’ protection, health and wellness including the social pension program.

Quijano also shared the brief history of the NCSC’s creation, the laws that strengthened it and the commission’s aggressive online database gathering campaign which has breached the 600,000 online registrants mark as of this writing.

NCSC Mindanao Cluster Commissioner Ida Yap-Patron closely observed the proceedings to share Paranaque’s best age-friendly practices to her constituents in Mindanao. 

Comm. Ida said the event runs in parallel with NCSC’s WHEREBD program in 2021 as it aligned with the Commission’s vision, the country’s development goals and establishment of age friendly cities and municipalities to support senior citizens’ healthy ageing. 

She further clarified that WHO supports this program by helping NCSC through technical assistance towards defining the Philippine perspective of age-friendly cities and communities. 

Parañaque City is the first city that responded to this call and a series of technical actitivies were laid out to identify policies, plans, projects and activitiea to make barangays more age-friendly 

Comm. Ida Yap-Patron as the Commissioner who was tasked by NCSC to help WHEREBD program.

The culmination of the forum workshop jointly organized by Paranaque City and WHO Western Pacific Regional Office turned out to be a rousing success.

The event aimed at sharing Paranaque barangay’s best practices and programs in establishing an age-friendly community to include initiatives in health, social welfare and development. 

Also sharing inspirational messages and expert inputs were Healthy Ageing Consultants Sebastian Libert and Dr. Wingjian Xu from the WHO Western Pacific Regional Office.      

The awe-inspiring activity turned out to be a great learning experience and a rousing success.

(With reports from Doc. Chin Gallenero, Photo credits to Cliff Cabigon)