‘En seguida,’ why not?
So when would one save the pond where water lilies double in size each day, choking all other forms of life living underneath?
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So when would one save the pond where water lilies double in size each day, choking all other forms of life living underneath?
It seems an opportune time for the President to direct state "think tanks" to forward their Position Papers or, better yet, respective Policy Memoranda, on an issue that has long held sway without any tangible results. Resolving the emerging retirement crisis cum pension dilemma has proved futile that it's best to commission a rapid appraisal study by any private consultancy group to afford FM Jr. the most thought-out policy option to implement en seguida.
Sadly, no workable policy option has been articulated — in whole or in part — for the interest of the stakeholders in this societal quagmire. An official statement from Malacañang is long overdue but none such is yet forthcoming, if at all. No doubt, the proverbial political will — to act or not to act — is pretty much a part of the equation.
Meanwhile, everybody wants to join the national conversation — experts, pundits, scholars, interest groups, mainstream media. While at this orgy, it has become all too clear that there's no deliberate, determined, or detached sense of objectivity and balance necessary to construct the best of policy options and outcomes. So when would one save the pond where water lilies double in size each day, choking all other forms of life living underneath?
Then, there's this "easygoing" commentary in another broadsheet by a certain writer who was a former finance secretary that interestingly delved into "reforming" the much-talked about MUP pension. Unfortunately, for any average reader or scholar of public policy at that, his reference to Republic Act 340 may have been a "misreading."
In the interest of vibrant democratic discourse, let me unbundle a few observations and walk you through, dear readers, viz:
One, it's entirely misleading to assert that the "current benefits" enjoyed by MUPs do stem from a dated 1948 law or RA 340. The term, "military and uniformed personnel," is only of recent memory. Nothing throughout any academic literature, let alone the law, is any mention made referencing the concept of the MUP. In the law's title itself, the reference is to "the Armed Forces of the Philippines," nothing else besides.
Two, the notion of "indexation" is nowhere in the referenced law spoken of. There's reason to be mindful, rather than "carelessly" stating about any grant of "automatic promotion upon retirement" without qualification. Further to that, to state that soldiers and "other uniformed personnel" (where such mention is zero) don't have salary deductions for their pension system defies — historicism, jurisprudence, or evidence.
Truth is, there had been an AFP Retirement and Separation Benefits System in place as early as 1973 (i.e. Presidential Decree No. 361) before government took up the cudgels. It must be pointed out clearly that its declared objective was the "payment of retirement and separation benefits provided by existing laws to military members of the (AFP) and such similar laws as may in the future be enacted applicable to commissioned officers and enlisted personnel of the AFP." Ergo, this separate fund or scheme ensured payment of retirement and separation benefits to members of the AFP.
But it's interesting not to forget that RSBS was to be principally sourced from: (1) congressional appropriations; (2) compulsory contributions from members of the AFP; and (3) all earnings of the RSBS, they being decreed exempt from "any tax whatsoever." To old FM's credit, he stands out as the only right-minded President who appropriated the "sum of P200 million to be paid to the RSBS over four years, the first remittance to be made in July 1974."
Against this backdrop, why can't the administration just revive the original scheme, thereby requiring officers and enlisted personnel in the active service of the AFP to contribute to RSBS an amount equivalent to 4 percent of their monthly base and longevity pay (as later modified to 5 percent of monthly base pay only by PD No. 1656 dated 21 December 1979) as an automatic deduction from their pay?
Seriously, the RSBS problem, in itself, is worth circling back to.
