Distorted Robin Hood notion of discount privileges

Distorted Robin Hood notion of discount privileges | Daily Tribune

There’s serious concern about the grant of discounts to senior citizens and persons with disability (PWD) upon the presentation of IDs issued by municipalities, cities and barangays. And this is its sinking effect on businesses large and small. Over time, the foregone revenues result in businesses becoming “silent losers.”

Truth is, the discounts deducted from gross proceeds constitute “sunk cost.” There’s no way business owners could make them back. Before executing the novel policy, the garden variety policymakers failed to first look into, wittingly or unwittingly, the math and economics involved.

For instance, was the policy subjected to the normal requisite of a “cost-benefit analysis?” Were the stakeholders consulted at least to check on the “congruence of mutual objectives” between the public and private sectors? Did the government gauge the preference, willingness to pay, or indifference of the businesses to be affected by the flawed and wicked legislated enactment?

It doesn’t require rocket science to understand that every form of “class legislation” has a pernicious and perilous impact on those severely affected by its implementation. The discounts granted to seniors and PWDs, singly or together, impact businesses either by bankrupting them or allowing them to thrive despite the policy.

There’s a reliable claim that restaurants nationwide are losing over P80 billion annually, with not a few single-proprietor outlets losing up to P100,000 per month largely due to the compounding “widespread abuse of PWD discount cards.”

That’s just one side of the economic ledger until we realize that unchecked abuse may have attended the granting of senior citizen IDs. Could any solution to this prevailing paradox circle back to the originating government offices issuing such privTypical legislation of this nature borrows from the Robin Hood concept of “stealing from the rich to give to the poor,” albeit an oblique, distorted version. A quick look at the statistical chart should generate instant dread with figures indicating that the senior citizen population currently comprises a total of 9,222,672, consisting of 5,120,078 females and 4,102,594 males.

This reflects 7.7 percent of the estimated 120-million Philippine population as of 2025. In sheer figures alone, it’s deemed foolish, if not stupid, for the government to support the senior citizens at the expense of businesses compelled to grant them discounts in restaurants and eateries; in the purchase of food, goods, groceries, medicines; fares and tickets for air, land, sea, and rail transport; hotel and resort charges when they vacation, and so on.

One existential truth behind this class legislation masquerading as welfare advocacy is the festering bottom-line issue of a public policy so skewed it imperils industries that buoy up the local and national economy.

Legislated enactments that erected these laws in favor of senior citizens and PWDs might soon lead to a scenario of otherwise viable enterprises and businesses having to close shop. When this happens, what economic development model will we be talking about?

While for now the bigger picture shows a young population that’s probably the youngest in Southeast Asia, if not the world, the “elderly over 64 and children under 15” represent the dependent population. Thus, the prosperity window largely depends on how well the beneficial period is taken advantage of.

In due time, an aging population will slow down economic growth because of the fiscal demands for increased pensions and the health care needs of the elderly. Funding military and uniformed personnel pensions alone is fiscally hemorrhagic.

All told, “a higher elderly dependency ratio means the government has a thinner base of productive workers to tax to support the growing ranks of seniors in retirement.” It therefore bears watching whether the next 10 years will lead to a decline in annual growth or the country will simply run out of money, the “grand scale corruption” notwithstanding.