By Dominic B. dela Cruz
Staff Reporter
CITY OF BATAC—Looking out for the welfare of its constituents, especially the elderly in their advanced ages, the city government here expanded the coverage of the existing Batac Centenarian Citizen’s Awards.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod here amended the centenarian awards to expand its coverage.
The previous council based the said ordinance on RA 10868, or the Centenarians Act of 2016, with the Dept. of Interior and Local Government Memorandum Circular No. 2016-160, which provided the policies and guidelines and the implementing rules and regulations of the said act.
But prior to the passage of RA 10868 and its IRR, the council here has already passed an ordinance for the establishment of Batac Centenarian Citizen’s Award as a means of recognizing centenarians and pre-centenarians through plaques, resolutions and cash incentives.
Batac councilor Violeta Daradar-Nalupta, who authored the amended ordinance, said that over the five years of its enactment, it has been the yearning of others senior citizens for expansion to other “nonagenarians”.
Mrs. Nalupta said their twilight years deserve much care, attention and financial assistance to tide them over with the increasing costs of basic necessities of their everyday life especially the medicines with the saying goes, “It’s better to give to the living than to the dead”.
For Batac City Centenarian Awardee, the beneficiary will receive SP resolution of felicitation; plaque of appreciation; and PHP20,000 cash or PHP15,000 for the natural-born and native citizen of Batac and not natural-born but registered residents of this city, respectively.
Pre-centenarian awardees will also receive the same SP resolution, plaque and a cash incentive of PHP12,000; PHP8,000; and PHP6,000, for those with ages of 99, 98, and 96 and 97 years, respectively.
The city government also gives gratuity in perpetuity in the amount of PHP10,000 to a centenarian on his/her 101st birth anniversary and every year thereafter until death.
Nonagenarian awardees will likewise receive financial cash incentives of PHP4,000 and PHP3,000 to those with ages of 94-95 and 90-93, respectively.
An awardee should be a registered with the City Social Welfare and Development Office and/or the Office of the Senior Citizens Office.
Mrs. Nalupta said funding for the said centenarian awards was incorporated under the CSWDO budget granting the monetary incentives by qualified centenarian awardees.
The award covers those who will be turning 90 starting January 1, 2010 with no retroactive payments for any prior years’ claims.
An additional advantage of the amended ordinance, Mrs. Nalupta said, is when an awardee dies six months before his/her birthday, the awardee will still receive the financial incentive award to be given the immediate family or kin, who is in charge of the burial expenses of the deceased awardee.
The awardees will all receive their awards on the day of his/her birthday.
For the existing ordinance, centenarian awardee starts for those with ages of 98 while the amended ordinance now starts at the age of 90.
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