The wait is almost over for the country’s 120,000 retired soldiers and pensioners as the Commission on Audit (COA) has granted their petition seeking to claim from the government close to P18 billion in pension arrears that have accumulated in the last 12 years.
In its April 6 decision granting the claim of Conference-Assembly for Unity and Solidarity of Associations in the Armed Forces and Police Retirees, Veterans Pensioners Inc., COA told the Department of National Defense (DND) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to pay the accumulated arrears of the retired soldiers and pensioners amounting to P17,891,468,975.
The two government agencies were directed by COA to “include in their budget proposal for the succeeding fiscal year, a lump sum appropriation for the full settlement of the total amount of arrearages determined to be due” and to “regularly include in their budget proposal specific provisions for the continued funding of pension differentials.”
The group’s national president and chair, retired Maj. Alfonso Besario, earlier said the pension arrears ballooned to almost P18 billion after the government “[failed] to implement well Presidential Decree No. 1638 or the AFP Retirement Law, and Republic Act No. 9166, which allows for an increase of base pay rate and benefits among AFP officers and enlisted personnel.”
Under these laws, adjustments should be made by the government to the pension of the retired soldiers whenever active military personnel received salary increases.
But Besario said the adjustments for retired personnel were not mentioned in the implementing rules and regulations of RA 9166, which was crafted in 2002 by then National Defense chief Angelo Reyes and Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin.
The COA noted in its decision that while the retired soldiers’ payrolls reflected the increases in their pension, these “were not paid due to lack of funds and thus have accumulated over the years.”
“The annual appropriations released for the AFP as well as their savings in appropriations as funding sources were not sufficient to pay such increases,” COA said in its decision signed by Commissioners Jose Fabia and Heidi Mendoza, the agency’s officer in charge.
It added that “the payables pertaining to the instant money claim were not recorded in the AFP book of accounts and no allotment was released for that purpose.”
To ensure that the retirees and pensioners will get the amount due them, COA has also tasked the DND and AFP to “produce and submit” to the Department of Budget and Management and the AFP headquarters’ audit team leader “an alpha list of all individual AFP retirees, pensioners and beneficiaries.”
The list will include the amount that has already been paid to the retirees, pensioners and their beneficiaries, and the arrearages and pension differentials still due them.
The COA reminded that “under no circumstance shall an association or group of these retired AFP personnel or beneficiaries receive the amount intended for each retiree, pensioner and beneficiary.”
To countercheck the master list that the AFP will submit, Besario told the Inquirer in a phone interview on Sunday that they are enjoining all groups of retirees and pensioners to send to their head office in JP Rizal Avenue, Townsite Subdivision, Barangay (village) Sampaloc in Tanay, Rizal, a validated list of their members.
“It’s not that we don’t trust the AFP and the DND, but this is a huge amount of money. We also have to contribute to [make the process] transparent. We will act as a form of check and balance to preempt any anomalies that may arise [with regard to the money claim],” Besario said.