Council calls for executive session

CEBU, Philippines — After four senior citizens had their financial assistance stolen from them, the Cebu City Council passed a resolution urging the representatives of the senior citizen departments of the government for an executive session.

This came after Councilor Pastor “Jun” Alcover, chairman of the Committee on Seniors Citizens delivered a privilege speech raising the concerns on the quarterly distribution of senior citizen’s monthly assistance of ?3,000.

Cebu City currently has at least 96,000 senior citizens registered with the Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA).

However, Alcover said that in every distribution, there were seniors whose money was already claimed by someone else. He said during the latest distribution there were at least four senior citizens who failed to receive their financial assistance after somebody else allegedly claimed it on their behalf already based on the payroll sheet.

All seniors were from Barangay Mambaling.

“Two of the four seniors went to our office and sought assistance to find remedies on how they can claim the money intended for them,” said Alcover.

Alcover identified two of these senior citizens as Patricia M. Uy and Viviano Tabares. He said they went to the Barangay Mambaling gymnasium to claim their financial assistance last March 23.

“Apan sa pag-abot nila sa lamesa, giingnan sila sa DO (disbursing officer) nga ila nang nakobra kay pirmado naman ang ilang payroll. Kini maoy nakapangangha nila,” said Alcover.

But the signatures of these seniors on the payroll were different from that in their OSCA ID, which was why they came to Alcover’s office.

He said this is no longer an isolated case, based on the audit report of the Commission on Audit last 2022 there were “various lapses” in the grant of financial assistance to senior citizens.

Citing a report from a local newspaper, Alcover said that such lapses include “inconsistent signatures, inclusion in the distribution payroll of deceased senior citizens, and signed payroll for deceased senior citizens”.

An investigation is now underway.

“Nasuta ang DO ni Mrs. Uy, na-assigned sa Office of the Building Official. Napatawag na ang DOs ug mga reklamante ug nagkaatubang na sila,” said Alcover.

Despite having been resolved already, with both Uy and Tabares getting their disbursement, he said this incident cannot be a passing circumstance without discussing it in proper forum

“Sila (seniors) mitug-an nako nga ang ilang pagbarog dili lamang pag-apas sa ilang financial assistance kon dili aron di na kini masubli ngadto sa ubang seniors,” he said.

Over this, Alcover called for an executive session with representatives from OSCA, Cebu City Inter-Barangay Senior Citizen Advocates, and Senior Citizen Open Organization Toward Effective Reform for Good Governance, to recommend possible legislative actions to avoid a repeat of the incident.

The resolution has been approved by the council. (CEBU NEWS)