Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Editorials: Giving more teeth to RA 9257
RIGHT now, it is obvious that government is more interested in implementing our crimi nal, industrial, commercial and revenue-raising laws than those for social enhancement, such as on labor, senior citizens, livelihood and population control.
If we have runaway population increase, it could be because questions over contraceptives, abortion and teen pregnancies have long been unresolved.
There’s this report, for example, about the complaint of senior citizens regarding their year-old plea to exempt the elderly from paying certain taxes that tend to cut down their income.
President Arroyo seems to have chosen to ignore the complaint, coursed through the Federation of Senior Citizens’ Association of the Philippines (FSCAP).
Assistance
When the cost of living has risen almost beyond the reach of low income people, the need to extend all sorts of economic assistance to senior citizens has become doubly significant.
The rise in the per capita cost of living has resulted in the increase of the number of people living below the poverty line, a social circumstance that is bringing down our global image.
FSCAP Central Visayas noted that, “the tax code does not exempt them (the senior citizens) from paying the 12 percent R-VAT.”
This, it added, “defeats the purpose of granting them a 20 percent discount on certain goods and services, as provided for by the 2003 Expanded Senior Citizen’s Act.
The law requires business firms and amusement centers to grant them discounts.
Gratitude
Note that senior citizens are people who have spent the best part of their lives for their family and community.
It is thus a matter of gratitude, as well as an expression of compassion, that they should be extended the affection and courtesy they deserve from their government.
Unfortunately, RA 9257 has become among the laws that have somehow “withered on the vine” more for their non-use than abuse.
How many laws have not been implemented at all because guidelines for their implementation have been left unattended to, or have not drawn enough attention from the agencies concerned?
Discount
Senior citizens (60 years old and above) “make up seven percent of the population,” particularly in the Central Visayas.
Yet, granting them a 20 percent discount will actually be for nothing since the R-Vat exemption will “leave them with only 12 percent discount.”
