Putting aside partisan feuding, lawmakers yesterday passed two provisional bills to provide a monthly stipend of NT$3,000 for citizens 65 years and older. The age requirement for Aborigine citizens is 55, due to their shorter life expectancy.
The two pieces of legislation, though slightly modified by the opposition caucuses, marks a significant triumph for the DPP government, as President Chen Shui-bian (
"It is the government's responsibility to look after the elderly," independent lawmaker Eugene Jao (
Government statistics show that by the end of 2000, there were 1.8 million people aged 65 and above. That accounted for 8.5 percent of the population, up by 52.7 percent 10 years earlier.
Earlier, lawmakers from the opposition KMT and the PFP voiced objections to the allowance because they said it would add too great a burden to the nation's cash-strapped treasury. But in an apparent flip-flop, they gave their approval after securing consent from the Cabinet to lower the age threshold for Aboriginal recipients to 55. That provision will cost the government an additional NT$400 million.
DPP lawmaker Chou Ching-yu (
The pension plan, retroactive to Jan. 1 this year, will benefit 450,000 senior citizens, including 11,700 Aborigines. Qualified recipients may collect the stipends before the end of June, as the government has earmarked NT$16 billion for this fiscal year. Those already covered by other pension programs will not receive the stipend.
KMT lawmaker Chiang Yi-wen (
About 300,000 senior citizens live alone. More than 172,000 of them need long-term health care.
"Besides the stipends, we should build nursing homes and other facilities for the elderly, so they can better enjoy their twilight years," Chiang said.
According to official statistics, only 60 percent of the elderly population live with their children.
Walis Pelin (瓦歷斯貝林), an Aboriginal legislator, said the NT$3,000 monthly allowance is inadequate to cover basic living expenses for old people who have no savings or support from relatives.
He said that the pro-Taiwan movement should start with caring for the Aborigines, who over the years have been ignored by the government.
Average life expectancies in Taiwan are 73 for men and 79 for women. The figure is 58 for male Aborigines and 69 for female Aborigines.
To address the problems facing seniors, scholars have called for the establishment of a sustainable pension system and the amendment of the Civil Code and the Elders' Welfare Law to legally require children to support and respect their parents.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,