The House Super Ad hoc Committee on the Military and Uniformed Personnel (MUP) Pension System approved the unified substitute bill based on the various bills filed designed to overhaul the MUP pension system to make it more fiscally sustainable and responsive to various concerns of the uniformed services members.
Headed by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, the MUP super body involves the entire membership of five major House committees – Ways and Means which Salceda also chairs, Government Enterprises, Appropriations, Defense, and Public Order.
The MUP super panel was constituted in response to Salceda’s bill filed only last month which sounded the alarm on the possible “total fiscal collapse” of the pension system for the uniformed services if no reforms are immediately enacted to save it.
The MUP pension now has a P9.6 trillion unfunded deficit, equivalent to 53.4 percent of 2020 nominal gross domestic product (GDP), which Salceda warned by “2035 would already account for 66 percent of the country’s target deficit.”
Salceda said the substitute MUP Pension bill was approved after significant issues were resolved among the committee members and with the military and uniformed services branches.
It includes key revisions from the previous committee hearings such as the addition of disability benefits in the pensioners’ authorized insurance system on top of already legislated benefits and the creation of a provident fund to be infused with voluntary contributions from MUPs.
Salceda pushed for added disability benefits in response to the suggestion of Iloilo Rep. Raul Tupas to enhance the benefits package for MUPs who incur disabilities in the line of duty.
“The benefits that MUPs will receive from the insurance system we will create under the Trust Fund Committee will be on top of whatever benefits they are already entitled to. So, this is a way to balance our fiscal reform of the system with the unique risks the MUPs take,” he said.
Salceda also acceded to the proposal of Muntinlupa Rep. Rufino Biazon that there be a harmonized definition for what constitutes an MUP member, which should include related uniformed services like the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).