Senate bill aims to protect senior citizens vs. fraud, online scams

A Senate bill was filed that aims to educate and protect senior citizens from fraud and online scams.

Courtesy: Official Gazette of the Philippines

To protect senior citizens vs. fraud, online scams

Senate Bill no. 671, or the Senior Citizens’ Fraud Education Act filed by Senator Jinggoy Estrada, “aims to protect senior citizens against fraudulent activities through proactive and centralized information and education campaigns.”

The proposed measure pushes for a “Centralized Service for Consumer Education on Mail, Telemarketing, and Internet Fraud Targeting Senior Citizens” to be led by the Department of Trade and Industry.

Under this, DTI will be tasked to coordinate with other agencies like the Justice and Health departments, as well as the Philippine Postal Corporation for its information dissemination programs for senior citizens, their families, and caregivers.

Such an information drive should educate the said groups about general information on mail, telemarketing, and internet fraud, including descriptions of the most common fraud schemes. This should also inform these people of the existing ways of reporting these illegal schemes, like reporting complaints to law enforcers or calling a telephone number established by the DTI for reporting fraudulent activities.

The implementation of the information dissemination program should be done in coordination with the National Commission of Senior Citizens and the Office of Senior Citizens Affairs of local government units, the bill said.

Aside from this, DTI should also provide any information available to a requesting party inquiring about any history of fraud committed by an entity or individual.

It will be also tasked with maintaining a website where all necessary information about these illegal schemes will be readily available for the elderly.

The DTI will also work with agencies, namely the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Securities, and Exchange Commission, Insurance Commission, National Telecommunications Commission, National Bureau of Investigation, Philippine National Police, and Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center when it comes to determining the various nature of scams.

What do you think about this proposed law?

Source: Senate