(Mark Balmores/MANILA BULLETIN)

Senior Citizens Party-list Rep. Rodolfo “Ompong” Ordanes is urging corporations and enterprises to hire fit-to-work seniors to help reduce poverty and hunger in areas with high population density and high poverty incidence.

“Many seniors in their 60s still want to and can work,” said Ordanes in a statement on Tuesday, April 23.

“It is a matter of matching them with the right companies with solid corporate social responsibility programs,” he added.

Ordanes, chairman of the Special Committee on Senior Citizens, issued these remarks following the release of the results of OCTA Research's Tugon ng Masa (TNM) survey, which indicated a drop in self-rated poverty in the first quarter of 2024.

Based on the survey, around 42 percent or about 11.1 million Filipino families consider themselves poor.

For Ordanes, a viable solution to this incessant issue is to increase the employment pool by hiring elderly Filipinos who are still physically capable of working.

The lawmaker said short-term employment contracts or consultancies can be offered to seniors with special skills and experience to help keep them active, as well as to help them provide for their daily needs and improve their self-esteem.

He explained that the senior citizens hiring model program of the City of Manila should serve as a benchmark for the country’s other 147 cities to follow.

“If each of the 148 cities of the country can produce 1,000 jobs for seniors in a year, that is already 148,000 jobs created, even if only for temporary six-month periods,” Ordanes said.

“If each of the 1,486 municipalities creates at least 50 jobs for seniors, that is another 74,300 new jobs,” he added.

Recently, the local government of Manila, through its Public Employment Service Office (PESO), entered into several memorandums of agreement with fast-food chains and other establishments for the hiring of senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PWDs).