LUCENA CITY, Quezon—This city’s more than 1,600 senior citizens were jubilant upon receiving their birthday presents during the distribution en masse for the July celebrators.
In Wednesday’s report, the more than 1,000 senior citizens from the different villages in this city trooped to the Reception and Action Center in Zaballero Subdivision in Barangay Gulang-Gulang to receive their birthday gifts.
Lucena City Mayor Roderick A. Alcala expressed his birthday greetings to the elderly sector and thanked them for their support to his city administration.
Alcala also pledged to sustain his program during his second term for the senior citizens as a follow through from the first three-year term he served as the city mayor.
The city mayor also prodded the senior citizens who are the respectable “counselor and advisers with their age and wisdom” in their respective communities to help the city’s drive against illegal drugs.
He also praised the senior citizens for their wise counsel and told them he came out clean from the mandatory drug test, which he underwent to set the example of a moral leadership contrary to allegations by his detractors that he is a drug lord.
In jest, Alcala told the senior citizens politely as “their grandson, son and mayor” that the real reason his critics lashed at him was that he sported the good looks more than his critics, like what grandparents or parents often do to defend their brood.