Cordi seniors still breadwinners
MORE than half of the senior citizens in the region are still heads of families, according to a recent survey of Philippine Statistic Authority (PSA).
PSA data shows among the 352,403 household heads across the region, about 19.1 percent or 67,150 are senior citizens.
With the current situation, a senior citizens group in the Cordillera region is pushing for more benefits to senior citizens.
Agapito Delmas, the head of Office of the Senior Citizen Association (OSCA) - La Trinidad Chapter, said that they are hoping to have more support coming from the government.
Delmas said with a P500 pension given to
very few indigent senior citizens, there could be different struggles for the majority of senior citizens who are serving as household heads in their respective families.
Delmas said the P500 is given only to senior citizens passing the indigent criteria of the government which depends on the class of the municipality and disbursed by the senior citizen’s association.
Most of indigent senior citizens have no SSS pension as Delmas said there are 5000 senior citizens in the valley with only 600 indigent slots identified.
The PSA survey further reveals 60.9 percent married senior citizens also supports the fact that most of them have already families to care for.
In the PSA survey, only one out of 10 senior citizens is an academic degree holder, three are primary undergraduate, two has no grade completed, two are elementary graduate, one high school graduate and the rest were those who were fortunate to finish their studies in higher education institutions.
The senior citizens with very basic or no educational background are mostly household heads which could entail they do not have sufficient time and resources to finish their education. Instead, as household heads, most of them were working for the welfare of their children’s future.
The province of Abra and Benguet have garnered the most number of senior citizens among the different areas of the region while Apayao has the least number of senior citizens with 7,659. Shena Golosino