CEBU CITY, Cebu — Out of the city’s proposed budget of ₱17.9 billion, Cebu City mayor Raymond Alvin Garcia plans to allocate ₱1.1 billion for financial aid to senior citizens while the rest will go to personnel services at ₱2.4 billion, ₱400 million for the barangays, ₱550 million for garbage collection and disposal and ₱450 million for socialized housing.

Garcia also disclosed that over 90,000 senior citizens in the city will receive free maintenance medicines starting January next year even as he announced that he will be reviving the local government’s initiative to support the health needs of the elderly. He added that this effort will specifically target chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and arthritis.

“That is why, next year, I will promise you that I will include that in the budget nezt year. In January, we will start releasing the everyday maintenance medicine of our fellow Cebuanos then ma’am will say that ‘We need not buy them,” Garcia enthused in Cebuano before local community officials and residents in Barangay Tinago.

“Don’t you buy maintenance medicine because we will start (the) free maintenance medicine in January, because we have already included that in the budget next year,” he added.

To be managed by the Department of Social Welfare and Services and the City Health Department, the program will deliver daily medicines to seniors upon presentation of a valid prescription, providing much-needed relief to many low-income households.

In reinstating the distribution system previously used by former mayors Tomas Osmeña and Edgardo Labella where barangay health workers delivered medicines straight to seniors’ homes, Garcia explained that this would be revived to make medications more accessible for elderly residents, particularly those with limited mobility.

The mayor further announced that December will bring additional financial assistance for seniors covering the last three months of 2024, while barangay workers, including tanods and health aides, may also receive a ₱5,000 Christmas bonus pending city council approval.