Dumaguete City Cited Best PH Place to Retire

Negros Oriental Aug 10 (PIA)–In recognition as the best place to retire in the Philippines, the Philippine Retirement Authority (PRA) has presented a plaque of appreciation to Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo for Dumaguete City being named as Retirement Area Deemed as Retiree-Friendly (RADAR) for 2018.

PRA Marketing Head Mervin Magbuhat cited Dumaguete City as the most retirement friendly locality in the entire country based on the standards for older persons set by the United Nations and World Health Organization.

In recognizing Mayor Remollo, Magbuhat said that Dumaguete ranks highly in all the international measures and criteria for the best retirement place, namely: United Nation’s Principles for Older Persons, International Living Global Retirement Index, World Health Organization City Age Friendliness Index, UNPF’ Global Age Watch Index and positive feedback from foreign retiree-members who chose to live or reside based on PRA SRRV Statistics 2017.

Mayor Remollo lauded all the stakeholders for their contribution in making this ‘City of Gentle People’ the ideal place for foreign and balikbayan retirees to spend their golden years in comfort.

Previously, Dumaguete was also named as one of the best places to retire abroad.

PRA, as an office directly under the Department of Tourism, sent a team to the city, Wednesday, to confer the distinction to Mayor Remollo for his initiatives and programs that turn the city as ideal place for retirees.

PRA found that based on the United Nations and the World Health Organization standards Dumaguete City provides retirees with adequate and cheap food; modern and affordable medical facilities and services; secure housing; plenty of leisure and entertainment venues and choices; integration are easy for both LGBT and handicap individuals; foreigners enjoy tax exemptions for pensions; communication and internet is fast and inexpensive.

Overall public infrastructure is deemed adequate based on Western standards while the cost of transportation remains cheap.

The city is relatively safe place and security is visible almost anywhere and drivers are generally law abiding and courteous and serious accidents are rare.

PRA serves 56, 432 retiree members nationwide from countries like China, Korea, India, Taiwan, Japan, Hongkong, US, Germany, Australia and Britain.

There are 374 retiree-members in Negros Oriental, 225 of them are in Dumaguete City.

But PRA expects that many more are unaccounted, hence, Mayor Remollo supports the plan of setting up of a satellite desk in the City Tourism Office to enhance the assistance and proper accounting of the retiree-members. (jct/PIA7-Negros Oriental)