PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte plans to create a pension office for the military to address the problem of soldiers waiting to receive their hard-earned pensions when they retire.
He vowed to continue giving salaries to soldiers before they receive their pensions in a speech before hospitalized troops at the V. Luna Medical Center in Quezon City late on Tuesday.
“I will continue your salary two to three years even before having your pension,” Duterte said.
“I want to create an office for pension benefits of the Armed Forces that will prepare everything. If a soldier dies, I don’t want the widow and the children to go everywhere [just to get their pension.]”
Duterte made his statement even as a bill filed by Senator Panfilo Lacson would provide special financial assistance to the families or beneficiaries of police and military personnel, jail officers and firefighters killed or incapacitated in the line of duty.
“It is high time we provided the much-needed boost to our police personnel by showing our concern amid the challenging role they play in our society,” Lacson said.
He said one way of showing concern was to provide educational benefits to the qualified dependents of police personnel.
“Certainly, this will help alleviate the economic condition of our personnel,” Lacson says in Senate Bill 260.
“While we are quick to condemn the scalawags in uniform, we must also be fast to reward the deserving.”
Duterte said he would also push for free education to the children of soldiers “giving their life for the country.”
“One of the things you’ll have, in the fullness of God’s time, is a program to have free education for children. That’s my promise,” Duterte said.
He said he wanted a system to better address their concerns of families who wait forever to receive their pensions.
Presidential Decree 1638, issued in 1979 by President Ferdinand Marcos, established a new system of retirement and separation benefits for military personnel going for optional retirement after 20 years of service, or by reaching the mandatory age of retirement of 56 with at least 15 years of service.
The monthly pension ranges from P11,125.50 to P86,062.50, depending on rank and length of service.
When the pensioner dies, the spouse gets 75 percent of the monthly pension.
The full implementation of the Salary Standardization Law is seen as a major blow to the Armed Forces pension system, leading to an accumulation of P18 billion in unpaid pensions since 2000. John Paolo Bencito and Macon Ramos-Araneta