Senior moments

Several captains of industry were up in arms the other day. After six weeks of enhanced community quarantine, which has left most businesses bleeding, and with the future still uncertain, they faced yet another problem: COVID-19 restrictions were being tightened on senior citizens and people younger than 20 – not just in the places under ECQ, but even in the areas to be placed under general community quarantine or GCQ beginning today.

The proposed age-related restrictions were in line with warnings from health experts that the elderly generally have comorbidities that make them more vulnerable to viral infection and its worst impact.

I don’t know why those below 20 are included, since health experts also say that the young have a stronger immunity to COVID, although there have been a few cases of infants, young children and teenagers dying of the disease.

As the mostly past-60 top employers of the country plus lawmakers pointed out that the move would eliminate multitudes from the workforce, government officials clarified yesterday that lolos and lolas could still work, as long as they were healthy enough to do so.

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“Healthy” needs nuancing, since even 40-year-olds these days can have comorbidities such as diabetes and emphysema, and there’s an obesity problem among sedentary millennials. In the US, obesity is being linked to the high number of COVID deaths.

Also, in this age when 60 is said to be the new 40, how do quarantine enforcers determine who’s 60 or older? Many 60-somethings will be waved through checkpoints.

On the flipside, asking a 50-year-old woman if she’s a senior citizen could elicit a violent reaction.

Age is not kind on the body. Most senior citizens have comorbidities, such as hypertension and diabetes, which can make them more vulnerable to COVID. There are heavy smokers and regular alcohol users among the elderly. But the afflictions don’t show, and the seniors aren’t physically or mentally impaired at all.

So I guess the prohibition on seniors will have to be limited to people who are overtly sick or debilitated. Even then, however, there are elderly persons who may use a cane or walk slower than sprightly youth, but who will insist that they can do their own shopping, thank you (or maybe there is no one else in the household who can do it).

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This controversy puts the spotlight on one of the areas where discrimination persists: against the elderly.

Perhaps to make up for putting the “young once” to pasture, senior citizens (classified in our country as those aged 60 and above) enjoy many benefits granted by law from both the government and private establishments. In addition to retirement pensions, the discounts in food and medicine are considerable. There are discounts in mass transportation. Certain local government units provide additional benefits such as free or discounted entrance in moviehouses. There’s a modest monthly cash dole-out for impoverished seniors. Some LGUs send birthday cakes to elderly constituents.

All the benefits are surely much appreciated by the recipients. It’s also something to look forward to for those approaching what we refer to as dual citizenship: Filipino and senior.

There are elderly people, however, who want to remain productive and financially independent, and would prefer steady livelihoods to state dole-outs or supermarket discounts.

In this quarantine period, we’ve seen many elderly people selling food in the public markets and on sidewalks; it’s not unusual for them to be the principal breadwinners of the household.

This independent mindset is going to be stronger among the younger generations, who are veering away from the traditional Filipino extended family system and are getting used to the idea of becoming empty nesters, living alone without househelp in their senior years.

I had an octogenarian neighbor who lived alone after he was widowed, refusing to move in with his children. He continued driving his car, wearing wraparound sunglasses, nurturing a lush patch of aloe vera in his front yard. He lived alone until he became critically ill and had to be hospitalized, and never made it back to his house.

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Around the world, there are laws against discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, creed, or certain disabilities. But laws against age discrimination are not yet common.

In our country, Republic Act 10911, on Eliminating Age Discrimination in Employment, lapsed into law on July 21, 2016. It bans employers, labor contractors and subcontractors from suggesting or following age preferences in hiring, firing and granting of compensation, benefits and promotion. Even requiring a job applicant to declare his age or birth date is prohibited under RA 10911.

Exemptions, however, give employers or organizations wide leeway to follow age-based criteria – if it is part of a bona fide seniority system or employee retirement plan that is in accordance with labor laws and certified by the secretary of labor following provisions of RA 10911.

Another problem for seniors in the Philippines is that the typical private medical insurance coverage, which people pay for throughout most of their lives, ends when it’s needed most – in the twilight years.

In the current quarantine – whether ECQ, GCQ or the latest, BCQ (for barangay community quarantine) – seniors are supposed to stay home as protection from infection. But they are not protected from arrest if they breach quarantine rules.

As we saw in that incident in Makati’s Dasmariñas Village, seniors (he looked like one) aren’t exempt from being tackled even right inside their private property by a cop in hot pursuit over a quarantine violation (not because of a continuing offense, as I wrote previously).

Seniors like to joke that age is just a number. As long as people are still fit enough to be held accountable for their actions, they should be considered fit enough to work and should not be denied the opportunity to earn a living.

“You think you’re protecting them,” Sergio Luis Ortiz Jr., the 75-year-old president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, said the other day. “No, you’re harming them. You’re harming the economy.”