March 20, 2023 - Mike G. Jamisola
What started as a simple question from former DSWD Secretary Erwin Tulfo coupled with a brave resolve to achieve a near-impossible feat, the NCSC has now realized a major breakthrough by cracking the 1 million mark in its senior citizen online registration program.
From a measly 31,241 registrants, 74 days since it was officially launched on Nov. 28, 2022 – NCSC set its first milestone by hitting the 500,000 benchmark on Feb. 10, 2023 and the 1 million milestone.
On Tuesday, March 14 at exactly 2:27 pm, one million registrants was officially recorded and it was all because of NCSC Chairman Atty. Franklin Quijano’s desire to come up with a new database system that would streamline NCSC’s day-to-day operations, not to mention’s abiding by Tulfo’s order/request.
Quijano recalls that it all started when Tulfo asked him about the exact number of “street urchins” or those senior citizens, who are living on the streets – he couldn’t answer the question instantly – so, he thought long and hard since then.
This and that… And then he finally set up his IT department crew and came up with what is now known as the solid and aggressive NCSC senior citizens online registration program.
What is more encouraging is that it only a little over a month to double the 500K number of online registrants to reach the 1 million initial target in exactly 32 days. Such an unbelievable achievement for something that was maligned, bashed and believed to be impossible just a few moths earlier.
Adding inspiration to the campaign is that from a gradual average of 4,000 to 6,000 registrants per day on the first month of the campaign, it has exponentially grown to a whopping 14,000 to 15,000 online registrants per day and even more on weekdays
NCSC IT experts confirm that the total number of senior citizen registrants could easily go up to 1 million in real time after the manual registration process across the nation have been tallied.
Under the new improved and enhanced senior citizen data forms, the NCSC has added some vital features to include the older person’s source of income (if any), skill set and health profile, among others.
NCSC Chairman Atty. Franklin Quijano earlier said that the enhanced NCSC senior citizens data form can be accessed and downloaded via the official National Commission of Senior Citizens website – ncsc.gov.ph – wherein internet savvy users can fill up the forms and sign up for free without hassle.
Quijano explained that NCSC’s aggressive online registration campaign is part of its effort to build an updated, enhanced and reliable database of all Filipino senior citizens as it generates faster collection of data than manual registration.
The NCSC chairman also shares his optimism that the total number of senior citizens in the entire nation would be completed and validated by the end of the year to include the manual registration that is currently practiced. The latest number of registrants as of this writing has reached 1,609,502.
According to the latest data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, there were 12,336,355 Filipinos aged 60 years old and above as of May 2020.
The total number of senior citizens was 11.31 percent of the country’s estimated total population at 109,035,343, based on the 2020 Census of Population and Housing (2020 CPH).
For more details and valuable information on the NCSC’s digital senior citizen data forms kindly visit its official website: ncsc.gov.ph and register free of charge.