North Cotabato gives free eyeglasses to senior citizens

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - Thousands of senior citizens in North Cotabato’s 17 towns and capital, Kidapawan City, benefited from the provincial government’s dispersal of free eyeglasses from November until early this week.

The project, dubbed “Antipara para kay Lolo at Lola,” is a yearly continuing initiative of North Cotabato Gov. Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza and her constituent-ophthalmologists and optometrists, voluntarily helping push the outreach mission forward.

Antipara is a generic Visayan term for eyeglasses.                

The project was pioneered by the office of Mendoza in 2013.

“This is part of our `Serbisyong Totoo’ good governance thrust, which encompasses all people in the province, regardless of faith and ethnic identities,” Mendoza told The STAR on Monday.

The office of Mendoza and volunteer organizations supporting her administration’s eye care thrust for all sectors had provided 3,852 North Cotabato residents with free eyeglasses in their latest missions that began on November 9.

The first to undergo free eye screening examinations and receive reading glasses from the provincial government were 400 elderly residents of Magpet, a hinterland town west of the province.

“That outreach mission was a very big help to my 400 elderly constituents,” said Magpet Mayor Florenito Guzman.

At least 265 residents of Kidapawan City, seat of the North Cotabato provincial government, benefitted from the project during an outreach mission for local folks last November 11.