Caring for senior citizens

Sometimes I wonder if this is still the same country I grew up in. Social values have changed so much and often, not for the better. Caring for senior citizens is one example.

- BOO CHANCO

It is sad that Sen. Ping Lacson found it necessary to file a bill seeking to penalize those who fail to provide the necessary support to their aging, sick and incapacitated parents. When I was growing up, caring for aging parents wasn't even discussed. It is simply provided by their children.

Sen. Lacson observed that "Nowadays, the sights of abandoned elderly in our streets become typical. Children fail to provide the necessary support to their aging, sick and incapacitated parents. This happens despite our moral and natural obligation to maintain our parents who are in need of support."

Times have changed. My wife was telling me about her childhood yaya who managed to build her own house, asked by her son to transfer the title to him and thereafter, the son kicked his mother out. Now she lives in a rented place hardly suitable for her ailing condition.

That's not the first case of parents being kicked out of their own house by one of their children. I have heard of parents transferring ownership of their house to a child who needs it to borrow money. Some parents simply want to avoid their children quarreling over the division of the estate after death.

But it seems it is no longer a good idea to do such transfers. Filial piety is out of style.

Sometimes, children are too economically hard up to take care of their aging parents. That's when the government must step in, through DSWD, to help provide alternate care. But no aging parent should be left out on the streets to fend for themselves.