THE Supreme Court has ruled that interment services are covered by the 20 percent discount on funeral and burial expenses provided under the Senior Citizens Act and its amending laws.
In an en banc decision, the High Court granted the petition for review on certiorari filed by the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and set aside the Jan. 18, 2018 and Oct. 22, 2018 resolutions of Branch 17 of the Cagayan de Oro City Regional Trial Court, which excluded interment services from the coverage of the statutorily mandated senior citizen’s discount on “funeral and burial services.”
The petition was filed by the OSG, the Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
The Cagayan RTC ruled on a special civil action for declaratory relief filed by Pryce Corporation Inc., a domestic corporation engaged in selling memorial lots and offering interment services, contending that interment service is not among the services covered by the 20 percent discount provided under Republic Act No. 7432, otherwise known as the Senior Citizens Act.
Saying the the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of RA 9994 (Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010) only mentioned the services of purchase of casket or urn, embalming, hospital morgue, and transport of the body to the intended burial site, the RTC held that the service of interment was not included as one of the benefits covered by the discount.
Specifically, the lower court held that the digging of land for the grave of the deceased, the concreting of the grave site, and the other services done during the actual burial are not subject to the 20 percent discount.
However, the SC ruling penned by Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda said interment services are covered by the provision of RA 7432, as amended by RA 9257 and RA 9994, which grants a 20 percent discount on the funeral and burial services for the death of senior citizens.
The ruling also emphasized that the Senior Citizens Act is a law created to grant a bundle of benefits in favor of senior citizens or those at least 60 years old, giving flesh to the declared policy of motivating senior citizens to contribute to nation building and encouraging their families and communities to reaffirm the Filipino tradition of caring for the senior citizens.
“Death may be the end of one’s life. But from the perspective of those left behind, there are things that survive a person’s demise. For the romantics, it is the memories and feelings that linger long after the passing of a loved one. For the pragmatics and businesspersons alike, the financial aspects of funeral and burial are matters that persist even after one is laid to rest,” part of the SC ruling said.
DEFINITION
Explaining the scope of services covered by the subject 20 percent discount on funeral and burial services, the High Court said that both RA 9257 and RA 9994, in amending RA 7432, do not provide for an exact definition of the term “funeral and burial services.”
Notably, it added, the said laws likewise do not limit the scope of the services falling under “funeral and burial services.”
Citing the concurring opinion of Associate Justice Amy Lazaro-Javier, the ruling held that it would be unreasonable to infer that Congress intended to differentiate between the deceased’s final solace for the purpose of granting the 20 percent discount absent a clear legislative intent to the contrary.
The SC said that based on the definition of the term “burial” as it is commonly understood, “burial service” pertains to any service offered or provided in connection with the final disposition, entombment, or interment of human remains.
It held that it follows that burial services “necessarily include interment services, such as digging the land for the deceased person’s grave, its concreting, and other services being done during the actual burial.”
This, said the SC was supported by the IRRs which prescribe the guidelines in the application of the 20 percent discount on funeral and burial services in that a comparison of the IRRs of RA 9257 and RA 9994 shows that the two are substantially the same.
The exception is that Section 6 of the IRR of RA 9994 which expounded on the term “other related services” by including a sample list of “services” and excluding obituary publication and cost of memorial plot.
But the SC ruled that the enumeration in Section 6 is not exclusive as it stressed that the phrase “other related services” does not refer only to the enumerated examples so as to exclude interment services.
It maintained that this interpretation was in keeping with the policies and objectives of the law, particularly of RA 9994 which echoes Section 4, Article XV of the 1987 Constitution declaring that it is the duty of the family to take care of its elderly members while the state may design programs of social security for them.
The SC found that the exclusion by the RTC of interment services from the coverage of the 20 percent senior citizen discount is not provided under the law, and that the IRR, which does not explicitly exclude interment services, cannot be interpreted to support the lower court’s resolution.
“A law cannot be amended by a mere regulation, and the administrative agency issuing the regulation may not enlarge, alter, or restrict the provisions of the law it administers,” the High Court explained.
