The National Commission of Senior Citizens in Western Visayas (NCSC-6) has already released over PHP315 million as cash gift for 29,791 senior citizens who reached their milestone age.

One of the mandates of the NCSC, according to Western Visayas Regional Director Ann Rapunzel Ganzon, is the implementation of the Expanded Centenarians Act Program.

“The implementation began in 2024. The start of the release of the cash gift was in 2025, thus, we retroact the 2024. This is not for indigents; this is a gift,” said Ganzon in a media forum on Tuesday.

Data showed that the commission has released over PHP144.72 million for 14,211 grantees who reached their milestone age in 2024; while more than PHP170. 29 million was released for 15,580 senior citizens who reached their milestone age in 2025.

The regional office covers Western Visayas and Negros Occidental and Bacolod City.

Under the law, those who reached the milestone ages of 80 years old, 85, 90 and 95 will receive PHP10,000, while those 100 years old and above are entitled to a PHP100,000 cash gift.

She said their last releases in 2025 focused on 2024 milestone agers in compliance with the order of their central office.

Ganzon said they were supposed to release the incentive for the remaining grantees this March and April, but there might be revisions because of the changes in their work arrangements.

With the order for them to shift to a four-day workweek, they can only operate from Tuesday to Friday, she said.

Ganzon said Western Visayas has the largest number of centenarians and has the highest number of milestone agers granted cash gifts among various regions in the country.

“We have a lot of centenarians, they are 190, which only shows that here in Western Visayas, we have long life. The 29,791 (milestone agers) makes us number one in the entire country to have received their cash gift,” she said.

The NCSC data showed that 14,510 of the grantees were 80 years old, 9,968 were 85 years old, 3,965 were 90 years old, and 1,158 were 95 years old.

It is also worthy to note that 21,077 of the grantees were female and only 8,714 were male.

For the first quarter of 2026, they have already received around 6,000 applications that were endorsed by their local government units. (PNA)