The Department of Agriculture along with the Departments of Trade and Industry and Department of Energy on Thursday signed the joint administrative order that nearly doubles the special 5 percent discount granted to senior citizens and persons with disability for their purchase of basic and prime commodities as well as substantially raise the total value of goods they could purchase at a discount.
The JAO operationalizes the initiative of Congress under House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez to raise the weekly discount to P125 from P65—or a total P500 per month. This consists of P260—for purchases of basic commodities such as rice, fish, pork, poultry meat and eggs, coffee, milk, condiments, other dairy products and cooking gas, and prime commodities like veterinary goods and certain construction materials.
As a result of lifting the value maximum discount, the JAO also raised the total value of goods that could be purchased to P2,500 a week from P1,300 or P10,000 a month from P5,200.
“Providing senior citizens and the differently-abled with additional discounts on agricultural products forms part of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.’s vision of providing Filipinos with affordable food and better nutrition,” said Agriculture Secretary Francisco P. Tiu Laurel, Jr. “This special discount will be magnified once our strategy to produce more food by modernizing agriculture bear fruit,” he added.
Aside from rice and other agricultural food products, senior citizens and PWDs could also use the special discount in their purchase of farm inputs like fertilizers, and herbicides, pesticides, poultry, fishery and livestock feeds.
Senior citizens, or those above 60 years of age, single mothers and persons with disabilities enjoy a 20 percent discount on most goods and services.
Based on the 2020 census of the Philippine Statistics Authority, around 15 million Filipinos are aged 60 or older. Meantime, around 12 percent of the population are estimated to be severely disabled, with one-third of them among the elderly.
The JAO allows businesses who would grant the special discount to deduct these on their income tax payments. ###
