Pensioners are garbage – Macau Today

I am not writing about the few pensioners who receive more than 10,000 euros per month. These are the privileged people in Portugal, some of whom even pass through Macau, whose pension benefits are appalling and affect the general reality of the rest of the pensioners.

First of all, it is important to emphasize that we still have about 2 million of our compatriots living in poverty. Most of them are so-called poor pensioners. What is it? It means surviving on a pension of 150, 200, 300 or 400 euros a month. It means surviving without being able to rent a decent house, because buying a house is simply a dream, until the day you die. It means surviving without being able to buy all the medicines you need. It means surviving without being able to pay the rent without the support of children, family or friends. They cannot buy a new water heater, stove or refrigerator, let alone pay for electricity, water or telephone. It means surviving by paying for a state television station that only produces programs for the mentally retarded, government information and practices exactly the same censorship as the outrageous PIDE/DGS. It means surviving by not being able to take a day off from home, even in the villages where they have family. It means surviving by visiting the supermarket and bringing home a third of the products you need. It means surviving by constantly asking for help from friends and family when there are families, because there are pensioners living alone at home when it rains and they don’t even have family to help them. The list of poor pensioners to know about could be endless, but the reader must have understood that politicians just want more and more poor people and for the elderly to suffer and die as quickly as possible so that the state can save more.

Last week, pensioners were the subject of television commentary because they were once again the target of the government’s ingratitude. The government decided to reduce the Internal Revenue for pensioners whose income was just over a thousand euros. The tax reduction was to start in September and October, but pensioners immediately learned that this tax reduction would not start in September, but only in October. In October, the government also announced that pensioners would receive a bonus of 200 euros. In vain. Two days later, the government refuted this announcement, detailing that the bonus would not provide 200 euros for everyone. Pensioners who receive a pension, thousands of whom receive a poverty pension, paid by the Social Security Institute, and another widow’s pension, paid by the Caixa Geral de Pensões, will receive a pension based on the global total of both pensions. This is shameful and infuriating for pensioners, who have received a total of about a thousand euros.

Being a pensioner in Portugal means feeling like nothing more than garbage. All this, combined with useless bonuses and unfulfilled promises of growth, leads us to think that in the year when we celebrate the 50th anniversary of April 25, the Armed Forces Movement has essentially announced that the main goal of the military coup is the return of freedom to the people and an improvement in the quality of life. Where are the freedoms of the citizens if there is hardly a street in the entire city that is not equipped with video surveillance cameras and the mobile phones are the new phone tapping systems that hinder any freedom of expression? As for the quality of life, this is visible to all of us and this is what we describe as the situation of many pensioners. A government willing to put an end to the poverty of pensioners would only have to decide what the president of the Pensioners Association and some people on their Facebook page have already proposed, namely that poor pensioners should be increased to the same level as the national minimum wage.

So, pensioners over 70 are really garbage. Even a pensioner who earns 2000 euros a month, has an account in any bank and requires a minimum personal loan will not get a loan because he is 70 years old. Isn’t this social discrimination and unconstitutional? Obviously, the Portuguese central bank cares about pensioners and has not decided to prohibit banking institutions from discriminating against elderly citizens.

Last week the Prime Minister announced the new EU Commissioner who will represent Portugal in the European Commission. Imagine how a penniless pensioner feels when he hears on TV that the former Social Democratic Minister with sad memories, Maria Luis Albuquerque, will earn more than 30,000 euros per month and other benefits… Pensioners in poverty benefit everyone. Desperate months to face the costs inherent in their survival. Countries that treat their children like this are truly third world countries.