ALMOST all of Mandaue City’s senior citizens have already received the first tranche of the city government’s financial assistance on the last day of distribution on Friday, April 23, 2021.
Lawyer Regal Oliva, Mandaue City Treasurer, said of the 24,100 senior citizens registered in the city, around 99 percent were able to receive the P4,000 cash assistance provided by the City.
Oliva said at least one percent or around 240 senior citizens did not claim their cash assistance during the allotted period of April 12 to 23.
The unclaimed cash assistance will be returned to the city’s general fund. It can no longer be claimed even during the release of the second tranche, which will be at the end of the year, Oliva said.
Oliva said majority of the senior citizens who failed to claim their cash assistance were those who could not be located in their respective barangays. Some of them are currently stranded in provinces outside of Cebu.
For this distribution, Oliva prohibited senior citizens from authorizing any person to claim their cash assistance on their behalf.
Oliva said they decided to stop the practice after some senior citizens complained last year that their cash assistance was claimed by persons claiming to be their representatives.
Oliva said for this year’s distribution, they will only allow representatives to claim the cash aid if the senior citizen is currently hospitalized or in quarantine.
The representative will be required to provide proof of admission from the senior citizen during the claiming of the cash aid.
The Mandaue City government has allocated P270 million for the financial assistance of senior citizens this year. (KFD)