Elderly Filipinos urged to register early for cash grants

Elderly Filipinos who will be covered by the amended Centenarians Act were advised to register one year ahead before they turn 80, 85, 90, and 95 to the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs.

United Senior Citizens Partylist Rep. Milagros Magsaysay on Friday urged elders who will be turning octogenarians and nonagenarians next year to notify OSCA now to ensure their inclusion on the list of recipients of the cash grant once the government releases it by 2025.

"Those of you who are 79 now, for sure, you will reach 80. If you turn 80 now, you will receive 10,000 pesos, the same in 85, the same in 90, the same in 95," Magsaysay said in an interview.

"So now, those 79, those 84, those 94, register now. [Notify] OSCA you'll be 80, 85, 90, 95 this year so you can be counted."

A one-time P10,000 cash gift for octogenarians and nonagenarians, or seniors reaching the ages of 80, 85, 90, and 95, was made possible through the enactment of the expanded Centenarian Act (RA 11983) signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday.

The expanded law hurdled Congress in December 2023.

The Centenarian Law, which previously provided only P100,000 to Filipinos who turned 100 years old, now also grants those aged 80, 85, 90, and 95 a cash gift of P10,000.

Last month, Senator Ramon "Bong" Revilla, author of Senate Bill 21, which proposed that P10,000 cash be presented to elders 80 and 90 years old, estimated that about P4.5 billion is needed to be shelled out by the government to cover all beneficiaries.

The National Commission of Senior Citizens on Tuesday vowed to fast-track the creation of the implementing rules and regulations or IRR of the Centenarian Law and to meet the deadline of the budget call of the Department of Budget and Management, scheduled on 30 April this year.

"We need to submit the IRR so that the funds of this law can be used next year," it said.