AN ERA ABOUT TO CLOSE

DIFFERENT FACES, SAME SHIRT

The Minglanilla Municipal Federation of Senior Citizens is a non-governmental organization composed of 19 barangay senior citizen chapters.  Incorporated in 2005, its membership has swelled to about four thousand today.  It is sharing office space with the Municipal OSCA Head at the ground floor of the old Municipal Hall Building next to the Bureau of Post.

Except for the OSCA Head who is the concurrent Treasurer of the Federation, it has no regular office personnel to do janitorial and all clerical office routines.  Because of this plus the irregular relationship with the local municipal government, plans and programs could not be implemented.  So far the best gifts that senior citizens have had from government are packs of goodies of slippers, liniment and rubbing alcohol, sardines and processed beef, reading glasses, with a fancy fan bearing photograph of the sponsoring politician.  Of course, local officials would dole out cash to pay for senior citizens group undertakings especially in Christmas and Valentines.

The Municipality of Minglanilla can accurately be described in just two words. – peaceful and rich.  Because of this, the town’s political leadership overstays so that Minglanilla has not experience a real change of power for many years.  Politicians just come, get re-elected, slide, take a vacation, come again for re-election until they are replaced by the nearest kin.  There is nothing more than a symptomatic relationship between the Federation and the Municipal Government.

Minglanilla is one of the richest lst class Municipality in Cebu Province with an IRA of P107 million pesos (2012 by Sunstar) plus additional earning of possibly P30million pesos more. But despite this significant figures, Municipal support for OSCA operations is P230 thousand pesos.  This figure however could not be confirmed up to 9/l9/2012 since no figures were shown on the GAD Accomplishment Report of Fiscal Year 2011 at the Full Disclosure Policy Bulletin Board under the folder Financial Assistance to the OSCA Operation (Facebook entry).

Within a period of one year almost a thousand Senior Citizens ID Cards were distributed and paid for by the Federation since the appropriate office stopped the supply of blank ID cards.  Since last year the Municipality has also stopped the supply of the much needed Senior Citizens Purchase Booklet to purchase the 16 basic commodities and the 16 prime commodities at discounted prices set under R.A. 9994.

In the absence of cash benefits and assistance, only 640 senior citizens could share moments of togetherness twice a year, enjoying free food.  The rest, some 200 to 300 of them, had to pay for their food rations through Federation funds.  The amount is taken from members’ annual dues, membership fees, penalties for new ID cards etc.   The collected amount from these sources could have become the Federation’s actual savings at the end of every fiscal year for other meaningful expenses. 

To be able to provide burial assistance to the members, the Federation maintains an in-house death fund paid for by members who wish to voluntarily participate in the program.  At P8,000 per member’s death, the sum could alleviate the financial problem the family would go through without such assistance.

SUDDENLY IN APRIL THIS YEAR, the Administration’s Campaign Bus, announces an offering of P500-pension for senior citizens in support of the Government’s Pension Program.  This offer confirms that Senior Citizens of Minglanilla are almost on their own – uncared and unloved for a long time.  That the offer is both sour and sad is captured in the following Facebook entry:

A PRE-ELECTION CLOSURE - IN A MEETING YESTERDAY (5/10 - 1pm) AT THE MULTI-PURPOSE CENTER, SOME 250 SENIOR CITIZENS WAITED THE ARRIVAL OF MAYOR TO BE LANIE PENA. DUE TO AN emergency, MR. ERIC PAGAR CAME IN HIS STEAD DELIVERING AN APOLOGY WITH TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS. THE FIRST WAS THAT THE P43,000 PLEDGED MONEY IS FINALLY UNDER PROCESSED. THE OTHER WAS BAD NEWS: ONLY 157 SENIOR CITIZENS COULD BE ENTITLED TO PENSION IN 2014. IN EZ ENGLISH IT MEANS WASTING MILLIONS OF PESOS TO BENEFIT A FEW WHILE CRUCIFYING THE MAJORITY OF SENIOR CITIZENS IN THIS TOWN.

MEANTIME, NOT A SINGLE SOUL FROM TEAM MARLO-LYNETTE SHOWED UP IN THAT SAME MEETING.

Thirty hours from now would be Election Day.  I hope this would end a difficult era for Senior Citizens in Minglanilla.