A bill granting an RFID 20 percent discount to senior citizens has been proposed to ease the burden of toll fees on the elderly.
Congress was urged to refile and pass a bill granting Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) discounts to senior citizens.
Elderly rights advocate and election lawyer Romulo Macalintal sought the legislators' cooperation to give priority to the bill, which was primarily authored in the 18th Congress by former Buhay party-list Rep. Lito Atienza.
Atienza's House Bill (HB) No. 9644 grants a 20- percent discount for senior citizens traveling through tollways in skyways using RFID, provided that the car is registered in their names.
The bill reinforces the benefit plainly stated in Section 4(h) of Republic Act (RA) No. 9257, or the Expanded SC Act of 2003, which specifies, among other things, that senior citizens are entitled to a 20% discount in "skyways."
However, the word skyway was removed when RA 9257 was amended by RA 9994 or the Expanded Senior Citizen Act of 2010. Hence, this also caused the removal of the 20 percent discount on toll fees from the list of transportation services where the elderly could access the discount.
When this issue was raised with the Toll Regulatory Board (TRB), TRB said that it was the Department of Justice's (DoJ) opinion that the amendatory law demonstrated that
"the legislative intent appears to limit the coverage of a 20 percent discount on actual fares for land transportation and travel, excluding toll fees in skyways and expressways."
Macalintal added that Atienza’s bill is seen as the solution to the senior citizens’ “very sad situation” because it not only restores the word “skyways” in the bills but also makes it clear that the 20 percent discount applies to “skyways and expressways whose toll fees are paid through the RFID or similar systems,”
This would ease the burden of toll gate fees on senior citizens, especially since Elderly Week is nearing on October 1 to 7 as provided in RA No. 10868 or the Centenarians Act of 2016.
Tags: #RFID, #SeniorCitizen, #TollFees, #Discount