Cebu City to Create a Senior Citizen Federation

Cebu City has created a senior citizen federation for the first time. The Office of Senior Citizen Affairs (OSCA) has begun its selection process for the leader of the elderly, and Mayor Edgardo Labella is tasked to appoint the charter president. He/She will have a term limit of three years.

The selection process

There are 80 barangays in Cebu City, with 46 in the northern district and 34 in the south. Each one has a senior citizen association with an elect president. Jeffrey Ocampo, the Acting Executive Director of OSCA, said these presidents will be the delegates to an OSCA-initiated assembly.

In this assembly, fifteen among them will be chosen by the delegates to advance to the next round of voting. After this, only five delegates will join the final stage.

At the penultimate step of choosing the leader, the five delegates will vote for the top three candidates for the position. These three candidates will be endorsed to Mayor Labella for the final selection.

The rankings of the top three leaders in the final round of voting will prove immaterial to the appointment. The mayor will pick one among the three based on a different standard. The elderly federation president will be selected by Labella by the end of February 2020 or in the first week of March, according to Ocampo.

Of the 80 barangays, 41 of them had already chosen their respective delegates. The OSCA has been visiting barangays to solicit the names of their delegates to keep up with the schedule. Once the remaining 39 barangays have submitted their endorsements for their delegates, the first round of voting will commence.

Senior citizens in Cebu City 

There are around 100,000 senior citizens in Cebu City who are registered under OSCA and are holders of OSCA identification cards. Among the elderly population, only 82,000 are receiving Php12,000 in annual cash aid as the rest were transferees.