Lighting up, I quickly
told her my age because I have been told many times that I don’t look it. Then
the woman said she’s older than me, at 86. Later, she’d say that she’s always
told in happy confirmation that she doesn’t look her age.
They're right, Virginia
Fidellaga doesn’t look her age, she looks only over 60.
A former education
district supervisor, Virginia is part of a family of 12 children—6 boys and 6
girls. The other female children in her family are her siblings still enjoying
life with loved ones—one sister at 90 years old, then another at 88, she
herself at 86, another sister at 84, and 82, all five appreciating life. The
sixth female daughter, second to the eldest child, died at the age of 93.
Virginia says it’s probably in the genes of her mother Gregoria who died years
ago at age 83.
After she retired,
Virginia took it easy in a long vacation and had enjoyable trips abroad with
her own family. She played yaya to a grandchild in the U.S. and stayed there
for 23 years, coming back to Cebu yearly for a month in the home country each
year until she came back home to stay in 2012.
But not all senior
citizen lifestyle is like Virginia's. The body depreciates, even if the outlook
is poignant in a life with less stress. There is a need for medicines, as life’s
retirement funds run out.
What to do with senior
citizens as their number grows worldwide?
The government has
reached out to keep aging citizens safe, keep them feel at home and still
welcomed by their families and community. In the Philippines, the government
has been trying to help make senior life still meaningful. There's the Expanded
Senior Citizens Act, the PhilHealth coverage and more benefits, rights and
privileges, such as discounts for senior citizens as consumers, as medical
patients.
And there are groups
appreciative of the contribution of senior citizens to the community who go out
of their way to help. Like the Cebu City Government which recently awarded 4
centenarians P100,000 each for their life span reaching a century in terms of
life longevity. When the life span grows, as it has been growing in the world, there
would be the bigger problem of what to do to enable seniors still to be part of
community life.
An ageing research
center in Denmark shows that lifespan will continue to grow in the number of
years “indefinitely.” In Britain, half of the children born in 2000 will live
up to 100 years old. But it is in Japan where half of the babies born in 2007
will live up to 107 years old.
In England and Wales,
one in every 100 people reached the age of 90 in 2011. Next year, there will be
more than a million people still living up to 90. In the UK, half of British
children who were born in 2000 will live past 100 years.
Not far in time, we’d
have among us more nonagenarians, or seniors from age 90 to 99 years, besides
the centenarians, or at age 100 and beyond. But, of course, we'd have more
problems if we were like worms identified as “caenorhabitis elegans” who live
up to what we know in human lifespan as the age of from 400 to 500 years!
Modern medication in
the 20th century has led people to eat healthily and work safely, not to talk
of the genetic factor. A research in 2012 shows that the Filipinos' life
expectancy at birth is 65/72.
Of longevity in life,
someone like Virginia’s late mother put it more meaningfully when she would
watch over her dozen children during meal time, making sure they were eating
healthily.
The mother kept saying,
“Magkaon gani, dili agdon ang baba. Kon wa na gani gutoma, husto na kay maoray
atong gikinanghanglan.”
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