The contemporary pension landscape for so-called MUP (military and uniformed personnel) is a cloud on the horizon. Invariably having served in the AFP, PNP, BFP, BJMP, PCG, BuCor, or NAMRIA toward optional or mandatory retirement, their pension pay is wholly funded by the annual General Appropriations Act.

Not long ago, the pay gap between active MUP in terms of salary and retired MUP in terms of pension was made to disappear and their respective payouts made equal and even. As a career path, service as an MUP offers front-and back-end packages of pecuniary benefits.

With pension pay based on salaries of the incumbent or active personnel, how's that for a legacy during Fidel V. Ramos' final months as president? It's deemed the "most generous pension system for the military in the entire world."

Increases in military pension have created a "butterfly effect" in the years that followed. Retiring military officers are promoted to the next rank thereby increasing the base pay of their retirement pay.

For better or for worse, the monthly pension of retirees is automatically adjusted to the prevailing salary rates of their counterparts in active service.

Any salary increase of active MUP implies additional funding for corresponding pension adjustments for retired MUP. With their pay now equal and even — by presidential fiat — the resultant costs of pay adjustments have been overlooked.

Pension pay not only caught up with active pay but even set off a "financial tsunami" in the national budget. Then Rodrigo Duterte even doubled up the basic salary thus making active and retired MUPs enjoy the same incremental rates of pay. Financed in years, the military pension has become the "big elephant in the room."

In years 2014 and 2015, some P64.2 billion and P65.1 billion were appropriated, respectively — anachronistically higher than the conditional cash transfer — that benefitted four million families in 2015. By 2017, the GAA allocation for MUP pension was at P102.4 billion causing severe "fiscal strain."

The problem was hardly dealt with urgency so for "each day of inaction, the size of military pension balloons." The culprit is a feature called "indexation" in the current military and police pension system wherein retirees enjoyed "the same increase in benefits each year alongside rising salaries of active personnel".