Only one month after President Rodrigo Duterte acted on the appeal of Philippine National Police retirees to stop the automatic loan deduction on their monthly pension, many retired policemen strongly pressed the PNP hierarchy to permanently end the financial mess and honor the President’s intervention.
The retirees said the automatic pension loan collection scheme involving Savings and Loans Association Inc. were still occurring and must be stopped due to abuses in its collection system.
The retirees want the PNP leadership to immediately revoke PNP Memorandum Circular 2016-038 and the PNP Standard Operating Procedure 002-16 by the Committee on Accreditation of Automatic Deduction, and to move for the suspension and eventual abolition of the Automatic Pension and Deduction Scheme.
These MCs and policies serve as bases for the implementation of the APDS.
Last May 10, Duterte acted the appeal of the group, an urgent matter that Interior Officer-in-Charge Eduardo Ano and PNP Chief Oscar Alabayalde vowed to stop.
They said the PNP should have also honored a Department of Justice opinion dated June 6, 2017 “which set aside DoJ Opinion No. 10 and determined that Section 7 of RA 8367 (Revised Non-Stock Savings and Loan Association Act of 1997) only covers loans contracted by members of SLAIs during their employment.”
The retirees pointed out that just like multi-purpose cooperatives which also provide loans to both retired and active policemen in service, the PNP automatically deducts excessive monthy dues based on the computation of these SLAIs.
Among the reported abuses of these SLAIs include charging excessive interest rates, some of the SLAIs reportedly increased the monthly amortization and number of remaining installments without the knowledge and consent of the borrowers with some having listed as having 870 NRIs on their loans.
The retirees’ plight came to the knowledge of the President who directed Christopher Go, special assistant to the President, to coordinate with the PNP and the Department of the Interior and Local Government to solve the problem.
Through the intervention of the PNP, the MPCs have agreed to limit the number of NRIs to 60 months for salary loans, and 72months for car loans.
A number of MPCs have also waived the penalties on some loans, while the PNP is looking for ways to limit the maximum interest rates charged by these lenders.
PNP chief Director General Oscar Albayalde said the PNP would study their request as he asked the retirees to put their concerns in writing for them to be informed in detail on the alleged abuses in the loan collection system involving SLAIs.
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