23 Cordi centenarians to get cash awards

By Dexter A. See 

BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera regional office of the Dept. of Social Welfare and Development will be awarding cash to 23 centenarians during simple ceremonies next month.

Janet Armas, DSWD-CAR regional director, said representatives of the agency are now currently working with concerned local governments to resolve several minor findings on the centenarians before scheduling the distribution of their cash gifts by July.

The DSWD-CAR official disclosed nine centenarians come from Mountain Province, four each from Abra, Apayao and Kalinga and one  centenarian each from Baguio City and Ifugao.

 In 2016, Armas revealed there were 79 names submitted by local governments for the grant of the P100,000 cash gift for the centenarians but only 25 qualified for the said reward and only 23 centenarians were able to complete their documents with minor concerns.

 Among the issues that need to be resolved by the concerned local governments in coordination with the DSWD-CAR include verification of the birth certificates of the Local Civil Registry because of reported conflicts with the ones issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority. Armas said the primary requirement to be submitted by potential centenarians is their senior citizen's identification card issued by their social welfare office which will be subject to verification by the members of the regional office to ascertain their compliance to the grant of the cash gift to centenarians.

 Aside from the required senior citizen's identification card, she added other requirements are the birth certificates of centenarians, passports (if there are) and birth certificates of their children.

 Among the secondary requirements that must be presented are other Philippine government-issued identification cards such as the driver’s license issued by the Land Transportation Office (LTO), social security cards like the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and Social Security System (SSS), Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) license, Philippine Postal identification card, Commission on Elections (Comelec) voter’s identification card showing Filipino citizenship and year of birth as a reference point for the centenarian’s eligibility for the awards and incentives.

 Armas said any two of secondary requirements may also be presented by the centenarian such as marriage certificate issued by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) or the local civil registrar, birth certificate of children born by the centenarian, affidavit executed by two disinterested persons who should be at least aged 80 and above with personal knowledge of centenarian’s actual age or date of birth, old school or employment records showing date of birth of centenarian, baptismal or confirmation records of centenarian certified by the parish church and other denominations and medical or dental examination issued by government or private doctors and dentists .