By Hilario Tamor, Jr.
When we talk of senior citizens, we visualize them as people who are sickly, unproductive, and just waiting for ayuda (dole out from the government). But we ought to change that kind of prejudice and underestimation of their capabilities. We have a group, The Golden Seniors Aging Intelligently, Inc. As the name implies, we are aging intelligently, and let me tell you how.
Our group continues to do outreach programs intended for the less fortunate in our society, the street children, indigenous groups, and persons deprived of liberty, among others. I have always emphasized that doing good to others comes back to you a thousandfold, not in terms of finances, but blessings of having good health, peace, and happiness in our family and others which we don’t perceive and see. Making others happy, according to Harvard studies, gives you a sense of well-being and this in turn gives you a stress-free life. And a stress-free life makes you healthy and gives you a longer life.
To my mind, we must treat our Senior Citizens as sources of wisdom, education, community development, church advocates, and corporate and business crews. We can use them to augment the 20% of the workforce say in the service-oriented and fastfood chains. A four-hour shift will be good for them, for us. This will make us productive.
For example, one of our officers leads a team to clean up their Barangay in Mindoro regularly, and that’s community development. The other one is very active in church-related activities in Novaliches, that is a spiritually-centered advocacy. The things to be done for seniors are limitless, such as collaborating with them. It all depends on our focus and creativity.
The country recently commemorated the birth of our National Hero, Dr. Jose Rizal who said that, “Ang Kabataan ay siyang pag-asa ng bayan” (The youth is the hope of our motherland). But let me paraphrase that with this, “Ang kabataan na ginagabayan ng ating mga senior citizens ang pag-asa ng bayan.” (The youth being guided by our senior citizens are the hope of our country.)
About the author:
Hilario “Larry” or “Jun” Tamor, Jr. is an advocate for the empowerment of Senior Citizens. He is also an educator and one of the convenors of The Golden Seniors Aging Intelligently, Inc.
