Gov’t in arrears of P17B in police, military pension

MANILA, Philippines—An umbrella organization representing some 120,000 military and police retirees and veterans wants Congress to allocate P17 billion to settle pension arrears accumulated in the last 13 years.

The Conference-Assembly for Unity and Solidarity of Associations in the Armed Forces and Police Retirees, Veterans Pensioners Inc. (CAUSA-AFPRVPI) made this demand as they filed a money claim before the Commission on Audit (COA) on Friday.

“We prayed, among other things, for Congress to pass a budget solely for the purpose of paying this P17 billion plus arrearages,” said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Buenaventura Aguilar Jr., secretary general of Aksyon Beterano Inc. (ABI), which is one of the 12 groups under the retirees’ network.

In a statement to the media, he said their money claim is supported by evidence of yearly unpaid arrears since 2000.

“We have just received from the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) the required COA certification attesting that the amount is not yet paid. We expect that COA would unravel fraudulent disbursement of the appropriated funds for AFP pensioners,” said Aguilar, who is also corporate secretary of CAUSA-AFPRVPI.

The national government forks out about P20 billion a year for military pension.

Officials have warned that the government’s military pension obligations might balloon to P1 trillion by 2040 if reforms are not implemented.

Aguilar said the arrears piled up due to the “fraudulent implementation” of the late president Ferdinand Marcos’ Presidential Decree 1638, which set up the military retirement and separation pay system.

The law provided that the retirement benefits of AFP pensioners will also increase correspondingly every time AFP personnel in active service get a salary increase.