Sponsorship Speech of Sen. Ralph G. Recto on SB No. 712

Mr. President, my dear colleagues:

If it takes a village to raise a child, then it must also take a village to care for the old.

And one that does so is great, for that is how a society is measured – not by the strength of its economy, nor the might of its army.

But rather, in the words of a wise man, on how it treats those in the dawn of life, the children; those in the shadows of life, the poor and the sick; and those in the sunset of life, the elderly.

Legislatures are also weighed by this standard, and those who have made life kinder for these people have in turn been judged kindly by history.

The same yardstick is applied to Filipino families as well. Filial Devotion

Filial devotion is a gene in the DNA of our race. That is why we don’t send our parents to nursing homes to be attended to by strangers.

We turn our very homes into places where we nurse our parents ourselves. As a result, a great number of our households today double as homes for the aged.

Even if the elderly parent has the means to employ a coterie of caregivers, the company of kin and kith is something that money cannot buy.

The same compassion to elders must drive government as well.

Sadly, there is a huge national deficit when it comes to how we treat those who have given their best to give us better lives.

Although this shortfall never appears in our book of accounts, they are however evident everywhere.

Narrowing the deficit

We have a public health system straining to meet the rising demand for geriatric care.

We have a pension system which managed to enroll only a fraction of those who should by now, be getting the fruits of their contributions.

Many of our elderly fall between the cracks without the safety net of a gentle society catching their fall.

To our government’s credit, it is narrowing the deficit and closing the cracks.

There’s a program which grants a P500 monthly pension to indigent seniors, courtesy of a landmark law, RA 9994, shepherded by triathlete Senator Pia – who also believes that the best form of cardiac exercise is to extend a helping hand to lift up the down and out.

Under this law, the discount for seniors has been expanded by crossing out sales tax on a wide range of goods and services – from the drugs they stock in their mini-pharmacies at home, to Justin Beiber concert tickets, to airline tickets, and even hotel rooms for a second honeymoon.

There’s also a five percent discount on water and power for them.

On the part of local governments, many are extending services beyond those prescribed by law.

Enter any store today and chances are you’ll find a notice with the selfie of the local executive with his toothy smile announcing that senior discount cards are honored in that establishment.

Paying by installment

But more needs to be done for our senior citizens than offering to laminate their discount cards for free.

It will, however, be impossible to give all the elderly all that they need for free.

Should we, for example, borrow money to build facilities and fund the services they need, the required amount will max out the national credit card.

The fact is it will be impossible to create a national infrastructure for senior care in one swipe.

Thus, the best we can do is to trim the deficit in increments, so that it becomes a diminishing balance.

It is a work done by installment. Today, through this bill, let us make another down payment.

It is like the shawl we drape on their body when they are cold. We weave them, thread by thread.

And through this bill, we are adding a big patch to this quilt. No need for a card

Health insurance can never be called universal if it does not cover all seniors. Enrolling them must be automatic, not optional.

The ideal is that the minute they blow out the candles on their 60th birthday cake to the moment they breathe their last – they should be PhilHealth members.

Because what is better than giving them birthday cards? Giving them PhilHealth membership cards.

Or better still, if one reaches 60, he or she does not need to present a card from PhilHealth to avail of its benefits.

Any valid ID would be enough. Entitlement must come with age.

Extending insurance coverage to all citizens 60 years and above is an affordable proposition.

For one, PhilHealth can never claim that government has been thrifty or tardy in infusing funds.

The national government has been religiously providing funds to PhilHealth to enroll sponsored members.

These amounted to P12.6 billion for 2013, P35.34 billion for 2014 and P37.06 billion for 2015.

Please note that the one for 2015 is on top of the almost P3.6 billion that national government will be remitting to PhilHealth as an employer to more than one million workers.

PhilHealth can afford My friends:

After raising its annual premium rates, PhilHealth can never plead funding anemia.

Remember that beginning this year, Philhealth has jacked up the premium for government-sponsored beneficiaries from P1,800 to P2,400.

For those in the employed sector, the premium, which is basically a payroll tax, has been indexed to compensation.

With P116 billion in reserves and P62 billion in income as of December 31, 2013, enrolling all seniors will not put PhilHealth in financial ICU.

It will take gross mismanagement for it to go flatline.

First, many seniors are already covered by PhilHealth, either through direct government sponsorship or by virtue of them being the declared beneficiaries of PhilHealth members.

Second, those who are so-called “dual citizens” – their second one being senior citizenship – but still punch the clock in the office are already under the PhilHealth canopy.

Third, PhilHealth is not an “unli” HMO. Although it can be used for a smorgasbord of illnesses, there are limits to the benefits it can give. The joke is that every PhilHealth case is a “terminal case”, meaning there is a limit to how much it would reimburse.

6 in 100

My dear colleagues:

Only 6 in every 100 Filipinos today are 60 years old and above.

As I said, many of these 6 million “dual citizens” are already under PhilHealth umbrella through various schemes.

But there are many who could fall between the cracks. This bill seeks to shut close the gaps.

It does so by amending Republic Act 9994, the “Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010”.

Paying forward Mr. President:

Some fiscal conservatives will be quick to take out their calculators to compute whatever small cost this proposed mandate will incur.

But let me remind them that insuring our elderly should not be viewed as a revenue loss.

Rather, it should be viewed as a productive expenditure and debt paid to those who gave the best years of their lives so ours will be better.

We have been told to always honor our debts, and the national budget is the ledger which shows our faithful compliance, always in amounts so large that they never fail to shock us.

But there is one group of creditors who has not billed us for their services, they who toiled to finance our personal growth and fund national development, never billing us in return.

They are our senior citizens and it is time that we pay them back. They have invested in our future and they are entitled to dividends.

This bill settles but a small portion of what we owe them. No obligation is more outstanding.

Mr. President, my dear colleagues:

This is not just about paying back the generation ahead of us. It is also a matter of paying forward, so that the generation who will come after us would know how to repay the labors of the generation who came before them because we have shown them the way.

Thank you and good afternoon.

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