Caring for senior citizens

Sometimes I wonder if this is still the same country I grew up in. Social values have changed so much and often, not for the better. Caring for senior citizens is one example.

It is sad that Sen. Ping Lacson found it necessary to file a bill seeking to penalize those who fail to provide the necessary support to their aging, sick and incapacitated parents. When I was growing up, caring for aging parents wasn’t even discussed. It is simply provided by their children.

Sen. Lacson observed that “Nowadays, the sights of abandoned elderly in our streets become typical. Children fail to provide the necessary support to their aging, sick and incapacitated parents. This happens despite our moral and natural obligation to maintain our parents who are in need of support.”

Times have changed. My wife was telling me about her childhood yaya who managed to build her own house, asked by her son to transfer the title to him and thereafter, the son kicked his mother out. Now she lives in a rented place hardly suitable for her ailing condition.

That’s not the first case of parents being kicked out of their own house by one of their children. I have heard of parents transferring ownership of their house to a child who needs it to borrow money. Some parents simply want to avoid their children quarreling over the division of the estate after death.

But it seems it is no longer a good idea to do such transfers. Filial piety is out of style.

Sometimes, children are too economically hard up to take care of their aging parents. That’s when the government must step in, through DSWD, to help provide alternate care. But no aging parent should be left out on the streets to fend for themselves.

If the Lacson bill is passed, it will be a criminal offense to abandon a parent in need of support. Lacson noted that in the US, 30 states have filial responsibility laws, with approaches ranging from civil court action to criminal penalties.

Our problem in our country is the absence of a good old-age pension system. SSS provides me less than P15,000 a month, not even enough to buy my prescription medicines and pay for regular blood tests, 2D echo, ultrasound and sometimes the more expensive CT scan. And PhilHealth is laughable.

Some of the bigger conglomerates provide retirement lump sum amounts that should automatically go into an interest-bearing investment account. If possible, only the interest income should be used for daily expenses. Unfortunately, the government taxes interest income from bonds and bank deposits.

Since the government is unable to provide adequate social safety net benefits to cover health care and living expenses of senior citizens, the least it should do is to exempt interest incomes of people who have already retired from their regular jobs or occupations.

For the longest time, our government has been taxing interest earned by bank savings accounts at the rate of 20 percent. What was exempted before was the interest on five-year time deposits. The idea was to encourage long term savings suitable for retirees. Now that’s taxed 20 percent, too.

DOF is claiming they are just equalizing the playing field because the old system is unfair for depositors who cannot afford to park their money in long-term deposit accounts. So, why not remove the tax on short-term deposits if leveling is the objective?

DOF also says there is always the option of putting funds in provident savings programs under SSS, GSIS and Pag-IBIG because all those remain tax free. Ayun… ayaw pala ng competition ng gobyerno.

It is also not right to call the interest earned by funds seniors put into bonds and other investment instruments as passive income. Those funds are actively earning interest that retirees depend on for daily living.

This new tax rule is once again hitting the middle-class hard. The masa is not affected. They live on hand-to-mouth existence. The rich have more funds than they can spend in their lifetime. The middle-class retirees are, as usual, easy pickings when they need suckers to pay more taxes.

It may be alright to pay high taxes if our tax money is spent wisely. For example, our VAT rate is the highest in ASEAN at 12 percent. Yet, our peer countries provide better transportation, education, health care and housing.

Our officials shamelessly steal our money in corruption legalized by pork barrel insertions in the national budget. Sana mahiya naman sila and prioritize public benefits.

We have a serious social safety net problem that is likely a drag on our economy’s growth. In the Nordic countries, there is a willingness to accept high taxes (45 to 56 percent of GDP).

That’s because they see their money being spent for their welfare. They have free or heavily subsidized health care, education (including higher education), childcare and parental leave.

The taxes they pay reduces financial strain and enables high labor force participation, especially among women. Early childhood education and care is near-universal and affordable, enabling both parents to work.

They leverage robust social safety nets as core elements of their economic model, and they are broadly credited with positively impacting economic growth, workforce participation, resilience and social cohesion.

Lacson’s proposed law would be unnecessary if we had proper social safety nets.

It is easy to say we cannot afford the kind of social safety nets they have in Nordic countries. But they are just allocating taxes for proper social safety nets. We should try doing that.

In our case, it only goes one way… we pay taxes and by some estimates, 60 percent of all that is pocketed by politicians. Just look at the luxury cars parked at Batasan. We can do a whole lot better.

Take care of our senior citizens beyond the restaurant discount. Tatanda din kayo.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco