Aquino urged to back more benefits for solo parents

The main proponent of a bill that will expand the range of benefits to single parents is urging President Benigno Aquino to certify the measure as urgent.

Rep. Carol Jayne Lopez, of the party-list group You Against Corruption and Poverty (Yacap) and principal author of House Bill No. 6184, said in a statement that Mr. Aquino would be a logical supporter of her bill.

“We must remember that former President Corazon Aquino herself became solo parent following the assassination of former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983,” Lopez said in her statement. “We can say her son, President Aquino, clearly understands the enormous challenges facing solo parents,” she said.

Lopez’s bill, supported by at least 200 other congressmen, was passed by the House of Representatives on third reading recently.

Under her bill that would amend the Solo Parent Welfare Act of 2000, solo parents would get expanded benefits to include housing, flexible work schedules, parental leaves of absence and scholarships for their children.

Lopez’s bill seeks to grant solo parents a 10-percent discount on prices of children’s clothes, 15-percent discount on prices of milk and food supplements, and 15-percent discount on prices of medicines and health supplements.

Lopez, a solo parent herself, said Mr. Aquino’s support for the bill would help speed up its enactment into law.

Sen. Francis Escudero, a close friend of the President and now a solo parent himself, has filed a counterpart bill in the Senate.

A recent statement from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, quoting a Department of Health and University of the Philippines  National Institutes of Health study, estimated that solo parents constitute about 14-15 percent of the country’s population.