Elderly care

A Senate bill has stirred debate on aging and ties between parents and children.

The ties are not always congenial. In such instances, parents can suffer the consequences when they lose their capacity to survive and function independently and their estranged children couldn’t care less.

The proponent of the bill, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, has had to clarify details of his measure that seeks to penalize children who neglect their parents who are senior citizens, ailing, permanently incapacitated or incapable of supporting themselves.

Under his bill, such neglect will constitute a criminal offense with penalties of imprisonment ranging from six months to 10 years and fines of P100,000 to P300,000.

His “Parents Welfare Act of 2025” won’t cover parents who have abused or neglected their children, Lacson stressed. Children who are themselves in dire financial need and with no means to support their parents are also exempted.

It’s interesting that such a measure has to be proposed. In my youth, Philippine society still largely featured extended families and multigenerational households regardless of income level, where the elderly and infirm were cared for by younger family members. It was not unusual for children to live with their parents till death do they part.

In many Asian cultures, children caring for their elderly relatives used to be the norm, but I guess increasingly among the younger generations, this is no longer the case. Nuclear families are preferred. Demographers have also noted rising numbers of young people who prefer to be childless.

In the US, it’s not unusual to see children move out of their parents’ home upon reaching the age of majority, 18, which is when American parents’ legal obligation to their children ends.

Among older generations in our country, large households were common, with children expected to help in the family business and later to take over. In less privileged households, children – as soon as they were physically able – helped in the farms, in fishing, vending or whatever the source of family income might be.

*      *      *

Today the comments about Lacson’s proposal – that children are not their parents’ piggybank or old age insurance or designated family breadwinners – say a lot about the change in Philippine society.

Others say the government should take greater responsibility for caring for the neglected ailing or infirm elderly. But this is a tall order for a government that can’t provide adequate social welfare and health care even for the general public.

Lacson’s bill is a refiled measure. Maybe he has seen too many incapacitated elderly suffering from the neglect of children with the means to care for the parents.

The problem is likely to worsen as people live longer but not necessarily healthier. I can attest to the challenges of caring for an elderly relative with dementia, especially when the person starts losing normal physical functions such as feeding oneself, bathing and walking.

Assisting such a person cannot be handled by a single caregiver; it requires a whole-of-household approach, 24/7. It calls for regular visits to hospitals, which private health insurance no longer covers; the coverage stops at the age when people typically need it most. How can impoverished families care for such an elderly in need?

Lacson has stressed that his bill also recognizes the role of government in caring for the elderly. It mandates the establishment of an “Old Age Home” for elderly, sick or incapacitated people in every province and highly urbanized city. Each home must be able to accommodate at least 50 elderly people.

The idea, he says, is that caring for the elderly is a shared responsibility of the government and the children. He also points out that under Article 195 of the Family Code, family members also have the legal obligation to support each other.

*      *      *

To promote the welfare of senior citizens, Lacson may want to propose greater coverage for the low-income elderly by the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. The 19th Congress gave PhilHealth zero subsidy and Finance Secretary Ralph Recto impounded its “savings” along with those of other government corporations, for rechanneling to the pork barrel of his former congressional colleagues.

This additional PhilHealth coverage should exclude government retirees with fat pensions and people belonging to high-income households.

Lacson may also want to expand the employment opportunities for the elderly. He should be aware of the issue, having come from an organization where uniformed members are put out to pasture at age 56.

Many seniors want to remain financially independent and productive as long as their physical and mental faculties will allow them. Unless they have their own businesses or micro livelihoods, however, there are limited employment opportunities for retirees.

A common criticism of Lacson’s proposal is that care for elderly parents is a personal decision of their children, depending on the quality of their bond.

Such bonds constitute an informal social contract, best complied with out of love rather than duty or by law. Lacson is trying to legislate love and compassion, the critics point out.

But in my years of news coverage, I have also come across cases of elderly or incapacitated parents who did not maltreat their children, but were nevertheless neglected or abandoned by children with the resources to provide support and care.

In our society where children have long been seen to have a strong sense of filial duty, do such cases of neglect remain the exception, or are they increasingly becoming the norm? After the Boomer generation, has the Pinoy sense of filial duty weakened significantly?

Perhaps children will see Lacson’s point when they become elderly parents themselves.