Seniors in Western Visayas still waiting for cash gifts

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan

ILOILO CITY — A small staff serving more than 100 local government units across Western Visayas, combined with delayed budget releases, has left the National Commission for Senior Citizens (NCSC) racing to catch up on cash gift payouts to qualified senior citizens here.

The NCSC’s regional office is set to release cash gifts in October to seniors who reached the ages of 80, 85, 90, 95 or 100 between January and June 2026.

That figure excludes 75 centenarians, or 100-year-olds, who already received PHP 100,000 each in cash gifts for 2026.

The October release will be the region’s third batch of cash gift distributions this year.

NCSC-Western Visayas Director Ann Rapunzel Ganzon said the agency is still completing its second-quarter distribution, which covers beneficiaries entitled to the gift for 2024 and 2025.

The NCSC’s Western Visayas office, which also covers Negros Occidental and Bacolod City, has distributed PHP 216.37 million in cash gifts to 14,555 grantees to date.

That total includes gifts to 100 centenarians — 90 for 2025 and 20 for 2024 — comprising 43 recipients in Negros Occidental, 19 in Capiz and nine in Aklan.

Ganzon said she could not provide a figure for Antique province.

The office has also distributed cash gifts to 6,116 octogenarians, or 80-year-olds, for 2025 and 1,002 for 2024.

It has released gifts to 610 people who turned 85 in 2025 and 4,080 who turned 85 in 2024.

It has also given gifts to 1,574 nonagenarians, or 90-year-olds, for 2025 and 226 for 2024, along with 549 95-year-olds for 2025 and 43 for 2024.

Ganzon attributed the delayed payouts to the regional office’s small staff of 16 employees, who serve 133 LGUs — including those in Negros Occidental and Bacolod City, which now fall under the separate Negros Island Region.

NCSC-Western Visayas was established in 2024, after then-Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman approved its creation, along with seven other regional offices, on Feb. 26 of that year.

The office was initially allotted only 96 plantilla, or government-approved staff, positions.

Ganzon, who was appointed regional director in October 2025, said the office started with just 10 personnel.

“We have the largest number of LGUs handled per region. Although other regions are wider in scope, we [in Western Visayas] have more LGUs,” Ganzon told reporters Wednesday, Aug. 26.

“We are surprised because application forms [for senior cash gifts] keep coming in, and we are told, we are really mandated to say no, never really to decline anyone, because it is a gift, so it is intended for all who have reached the milestone ages [of] 80, 85, 90, 95, and 100,” she added.

Ganzon also attributed the delay to late budgeting.

Republic Act No. 11982, known as the Expanded Centenarians Act, amended the 2016 Centenarians Act to grant a PHP 10,000 cash gift to Filipinos who reach the ages of 80, 85, 90 or 95.

The law was signed Feb. 26, 2024, and took effect March 17, 2024.

But the law’s implementing budget was not released until a year later, according to Ganzon.

“We were there to retroact [the distribution of cash gifts], so we were catching up all [cash gifts for] 2024 and 2025,” she said.

Ganzon said the office aims to release first-quarter 2026 cash gifts as soon as possible, followed by the second half of 2026 (July to December) by year’s end.

That timeline, she said, would allow the office to distribute first-quarter 2027 cash gifts on time or with significantly less delay.

“We know that it has been delayed a bit, but we want to distribute [the cash gifts] for 2026 simultaneously, because we don’t want to have complaints from people who might be saying, that the distribution in other provinces already started, and theirs hasn’t,” she said.

The NCSC’s central office has piloted distributing cash gifts through ATM bank cards, wire transfers and e-wallet mobile applications, but Ganzon said she is not confident those channels would reach all senior recipients in the region.

“I told [NCSC chairperson] Merceditas Gutierrez [that] I cannot commit even 50 percent. We’ve partnered with Landbank, Palawan [Express Pera Padala], and GCash, but I said not all [seniors] have [accounts] in Region 6. I am not sure that if we send that, it would reach the seniors,” Ganzon said.