Senator Edgardo J. Angara welcomed the Senate passage on third reading last Monday of Senate Bill 3561 or the “Expanded Senior Citizens Act”.

The bill, co-authored by Angara, seeks to exempt senior citizens from the 12 percent value-added tax (VAT) in goods and services. He has long been pushing for the amendment of the existing Senior Citizens Law, which he principally authored and sponsored during the 8th Congress.

“The implementation of these privileges not only helps our senior citizens in easing their daily expenses but also extending to a great extent their incentives which allow them to maximize their resource-spending. This government assistance is a way of providing social protection among the poorest of our senior citizens,” Angara said.

He said the bill will address the eventual irrelevance of the original 20 percent provision for exemption and will exempt senior citizens from EVAT, thereby giving them back the 20 percent discount intended for them to enjoy.

In 1992, Sen. Angara authored and sponsored the Senior Citizens Law that granted 20 percent discount on their purchase of goods and services, medical and dental care, transport fare, funeral and burial services, among others.

The previous law granted, among others, a 20 percent discount in hotels and lodging establishments, restaurants and recreation centers, purchase of medicines, laboratory tests and diagnostic services; a minimum of 20 percent discount in admission fees in theaters and cinemas, concert halls, and other similar places of leisure and amusement; a 20 percent discount in fares for domestic air and sea travels as well as in public railways, skyways and bus fares; and special discount programs on purchases of basic commodities in markets and shopping centers.