NextGen Day

On Thursday, the Supreme Court (SC) ruled that the 20% discount offered by Republic Act 7432, or the Senior Citizens Act, as modified, covers detention services for elderly persons.

In its ruling, the SC en banc upheld a 2018 ruling of the Cagayan de Oro City Regional Trial Court (RTC) that excluded interment services from the coverage of the statutorily required senior citizen discount on “funeral and burial services” and allowed the petition filed by government attorneys.

The State, through the Office of the Solicitor General, the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development, petitioned the Supreme Court, challenging the Cagayan RTC’s decision to uphold the lawsuit brought by a private company, Pryce Company Inc.

The company, which sells memorial lands and provides interment services, claimed that interment services are not among the services that qualify for the 20% discount offered by RA 7432.

The Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010’s Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) were deemed by the RTC to solely refer to the services of purchasing a casket or urn, embalming, transporting the body to the desired burial place, and hospital mortuary.

The RTC determined that the interment service was not one of the perks covered. Court came to the conclusion that the real burial services, including the actual grave digging and gravesite concreting, were not covered by the discount.

In its decision, the Supreme Court stressed that the Senior Citizens Act was created to provide a number of benefits to senior citizens, or those who are at least 60 years old, giving substance to the stated policy of encouraging senior citizens to contribute to the nation building and encouraging their families and communities to reaffirm the Filipino tradition of caring for the elderly.

“One’s life may conclude with death. There are, however, some things that endure a person’s passing from the perspective of those who are left behind. For romantics, memories and emotions endure long after a loved one has passed away. The financial components of funeral and burial are issues that endure even after a person is laid to rest, according to businesspeople and pragmatists alike, the Court declared.

The Court explained the range of services covered by the subject 20 percent discount on funeral and burial services, stating that neither RA 9257 nor RA 9994, which amended RA 7432, give a precise explanation of the term “funeral and burial services.”

Significantly, it said that the extent of the services falling under “funeral and burial services” is not limited by the aforementioned legislation.

The Court further stated that absent a clear indication to the contrary, it would be unreasonable to assume that Congress intended to distinguish between the deceased’s final resting place for the purposes of granting the 20 percent discount. This was made clear by Justice Amy C. Lazaro-Javier in her concurring opinion.

According to the court, “burial service” refers to any service rendered or performed in conjunction with the final disposition, entombment, or interment of human remains based on the definition of the term “burial” as it is usually understood.

It was decided that because of this, burial services necessarily involve interment services, such as preparing the ground for the grave, concreting it, and performing other activities related to the burial itself.

The IRRs that specify the rules for applying the 20 percent discount on funeral and burial services, according to the Court, supported this determination. A comparison of the IRRs of RA 9257 and RA 9994 reveals that the two are essentially identical.

The exception is that Section 6 of the IRR of RA 9994 expanded on the phrase “other associated services” by providing a sample list of “services” while eliminating the price of a memorial plot and the publication of obituaries.

The enumeration in Section 6 is not exclusive, according to the Court’s ruling. It emphasized that the term “other related services” does not simply refer to the examples listed in order to exclude burial services.

The Court argued that this interpretation was consistent with the policies and goals of the law, particularly RA 9994, which echoes Section 4 of Article XV of the Constitution and states that while the state may create social security programs for the elderly, it is the responsibility of the family to care for those members.

The Court determined that the lower court’s Resolution could not be upheld because the IRR, which does not expressly prohibit interment services, cannot be read to sustain the RTC’s exclusion of interment services from the coverage of the 20 percent senior citizen discount.

It further emphasized that a law cannot be changed by a simple regulation, nor may the law’s contents be expanded, changed, or restricted by the administrative agency producing the regulation.

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