Naia hiring Pasay seniors as airport ushers

About a hundred senior citizens in Pasay City are being hired as airport employees after the local government signed an agreement with the Manila International Airport Authority, Department of Labor and Employment, and Ang Probinsyano party-list group.

Under the memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed on Wednesday, the senior citizens will be serving as ushers for 15 days at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

They would serve for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, assigned to “tasks that are not physically (taxing)” such as guiding airline passengers to their assigned areas, the right queues, or the proper offices that can address their concerns. Each one of them will be paid P537 daily, the minimum wage in Metro Manila.

According to the Pasay city government, the recruits aged 60 to 70 and were selected “based on their health condition and fitness to work.”“Through this project, we are giving our senior citizens the opportunity to still maximize their productivity, mingle again with people in a regular work environment and (augment) their families’ (income),” Pasay Mayor Emi Calixto-Rubiano said in a statement.According to Pasay’s Office of Senior Citizen Affairs, there are more than 37,000 senior citizens currently residing in the city, around 35,000 of them registered in barangay-based associations.

The MOA was signed on Wednesday by Rubiano, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Ang Probinsyano Party-list Rep. Ronnie Ong and Manila International Airport Authority general manager Eddie Monreal.  –DEXTER CABALZA INQ