X-Pats are no longer Seniors.

I stopped in at Mercury Drugs this morning to get a prescription filled. I picked a priority number from the senior's line. With in a minute an employee gave me a number from the regulator line. Than she told me that I was not a senior citizen. She explained that I was a foreigner, not a citizen and therefor had to get in line with the rest of the crowd. Here is my take on this; I look like a teenager, My bad knees miraculously healed themselves, the diabetic swelling in my legs suddenly disappeared and my chronic coronary heart decease no longer is a problem. I'm wondering if KFC, Jolly Bee, Robertson's Market, Hipper Mart and all other retailers in the PI are going to close down their SENIOR's line to SENIOR X-PAT's? Mercury Drugs just got put on my DO NOT SHOP list! There sign also includes PWD (Persons With Disabilities)! I sure as hell qualify for that. I have seen other similar signs that include pregnant women. If I were a pregnant woman, on vacation would Mercury Drugs, not let me use that priority line because I was a foreigner? My Filipina wife will be a SENIOR soon. If she gets in the priority line, once she becomes a SENIOR, is Mercury Drugs going to turn her away, BECAUSE she is an American? Do not take this as something related to the senior's discount card because it is not. It's about this old disabled X-Pat, on old wore out legs having to stand in line behind a half dozen teenagers.
"This is nothing more than age discrimination by Mercury Drugs in their "priority line policy.""

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Old age refers to ages nearing or surpassing the life expectancy of human beings, and is thus the end of the human life cycle. Terms and euphemisms include old people (worldwide usage), seniors (American usage), senior citizens (British and American usage), older adults (in the social sciences[1]), the elderly, and elders (in many cultures—including the cultures of aboriginal people).

Old people often have limited regenerative abilities and are more susceptible to disease, syndromes, and sickness than younger adults. The organic process of ageing is called senescence,[2] the medical study of the aging process is called gerontology,[3] and the study of diseases that afflict the elderly is called geriatrics.[4] The elderly also face other social issues around retirement, loneliness, and ageism.[5]


Old age is a social construct rather than a definite biological stage, and the chronological age denoted as "old age" varies culturally and historically.[6]

 

But Jim, she is so right, we DO NOT Qualify one way or the other

 

I'm an Alien

 

I bet you don't make that mistake again.

If you want to complain to their head office, and I would if I were you. Here is the link
Mercury Drug - The Leading Drugstore in the Philippines

 

My wife's biggest fear about coming to the US was that she'd be treated here like I was there.

 

I wouldn't go quite that far but she has not been disrespected either. Nor has she been discriminated against, over charged because she's a filipina or a target of xenophobes.

 

I believe that part of the problem is that, as opposed to the US, for example, where the whole definition of a"senior citizen" is really up to the discretion of individual merchants (for example, some offer a discount at age 55, some at 62, others at 65, etc.), in the Philippines it is defined in law: "Senior citizen or elderly refers to any resident citizen of the Philippines at least sixty (60) years old."
R.A. No. 9994
Of course that doesn't prevent an individual merchant from adopting more generous policies, but they often just defer to the definition in the law.
BTW, in 2014 some Philippine lawmakers tried to expand the act to include foreigners, but I guess it didn't pass.
Alien seniors should get discounts too