Enlisted men, generals slam pension bill

ENLISTED personnel and active and retired generals on Monday slammed a revamped pension system as unacceptable, saying they would bear the cost of reforming the Armed Forces’ “corrupt” Retirement Separation and Benefits System.

Text messages criticizing the revamp, which is in a bill that is now on second reading in the Senate, was circulated among enlisted soldiers Monday.

The proposed law, the messages said, would drastically cut the retirement benefits that had previously been granted to retiring soldiers, including a one-rank promotion and a lump-sum payment on retirement.

Earlier, the Association of Generals and Flag Officers issued a position paper criticizing the pension proposal.

“Sadly, there seems to be little hope that the present crop of retirees will have a better pension system in the future,” the group said.

The statement, signed by retired Vice Admiral Emilio Marayag, said the bill was “laden with unacceptable features adverse to the economic welfare and financial security of retirees and pensioners.”

Some features ignored the vested rights, equal protection, and social justice clauses of the Constitution and other existing laws on pension, the group said.

The association said the arrears from the system had already reached P16 billion, and would rise to “unsupportable proportions” unless the government allocated yearly payments in the national budget.

The group blamed the Budget Department for ignoring the Constitution, thereby forcing the Defense Department and the Armed Forces to use savings to finance pension payments on an irregular basis.

But retired Vice Admiral Emilio Marayag, president and chief operating officer of the RSBS, said the new proposal if approved would not affect existing servicemen, although this was not mentioned in his letter dated June 2, 2011 to Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin.

“I would like to stress that the new system would be applicable to new entrants and will not affect those in the service and those receiving a pension,” Marayag said.

But one enlisted soldier complained that the new system would turn them all into contractual workers who would need to renew their contracts every three years.

The bill’s other features include changing the mandatory retirement age to 58 from 56, and lengthening the compulsory retirement to 25 years from 20 years now.

The bill also seeks to cut the payments to the families of deceased pensioners to 50 percent of the total from 75 percent. –Florante S. Solmerin, Manila Standard Today