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A joint House panel has tasked the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Agriculture (DA) to increase the senior citizens' discount on basic goods from a measly P65 per week to P125 per week, or a total of P500 per month. 

“Using food inflation rates, we determined that by now the total value of the discount should have been adjusted to around P126.31 per week. So, adjustment to P125 is more or less where we should be by now,” Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda said on Tuesday, Feb. 13. 

Salceda chairs the Committee on Ways and Means--one of the three panels that have been jointly conducting oversight hearings the past few weeks on the compliance of commercial establishments with the lawful discounts for seniors and persons with disabilities (PWDs). 

The other two were the Committee on Persons with Disabilities and Committee on Senior Citizens, chaired by Agusan del Sur 1st district Rep. Alfel Bascug and Senior Citizens Party-list Rep. Rodolfo Ordanes, respectively. 

“The DTI and the DA are so directed to adjust the rates prescribed in the administrative order,” Salceda said during the joint public hearing following a motion from his fellow committee chairmen. 

The committees made the determination by choosing between either consumer price index (CPI) levels or food inflation from 2010 to 2024. 

“The food inflation rate makes better sense since these are basic goods.At least, this is an empirically-made policy decision rather than setting an arbitrary adjustment,” noted the Bicolano. 

Under the current system, promulgated through DTI-DA Administrative Order No. 10-02, as part of Republic Act (RA) No. 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizens Act, Senior Citizens are entitled to a special discount of five percent of the regular retail price, without exemption from value-added tax, of basic necessities. 

The total value of goods discounted is capped at P1,300 per week, or a P65 discount. “This is just an administrative order, so it can be adjusted with immediate effect,” Salceda further said. 

The economist-solon bared that “The cost to society of these discounts is at least P31.096 billion every year, a burden shared equally among all others.” 

“This is the overarching doctrine of these discounts–everyone else has a responsibility to take care of elders, simply because everyone else will become elders at some point," he noted.