P100K cash gifts? Too late

After reading the news item on the eight centenarians who were honored in Cebu, each with a cash gift of P100,000 and a plaque (“101-yr-old woman’s secret to long life: Shun worries,” Across the Nation, Inquirer, 4/13/13), it occurred to me that the law, or whatever, which authorized the gifts should be revised.

Why not give P50,000 to senior citizens 90 years old and above? At the age of 100 and beyond, most senior citizens would already be in wheelchairs and could not care less about what’s going on (signs of senility). They can also use the cash gift for their special care and, if need be, for their burial, why not?

I’ll be 93 on my next birthday. I can use the P50,000 to splurge on a body massage in a spa and to get a good manicure and pedicure at home.

Actually, I spend my pension of P5,000 from the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office on taxi fare to go to  hearings in Congress or to city council sessions to follow up my advocacies for SPED Centers in our barangay and for the improvement of day care centers.

—CONSUELO SISON,

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