MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 29, 2014) – Almost P10 billion in pension was released by the Department of Budget and Management to the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office and the Armed Forces of the Philippines for war veterans and retired military personnel.
Secretary of Budget and Management Florencio Abad said P7.5 billion of the total amount will benefit some 120,296 AFP pensioners. He said the funding was sourced from the Pension and Gratuity Fund under the 2014 General Appropriations Act.
“This latest release guarantees the timely delivery of regular pension benefits to our retired military personnel for the second quarter of the year. At the same time, we continue our transparency efforts to update, validate, and cleanse our list of beneficiaries so that it’s free of invalid, duplicate, and ghost entries. Our pensioners and their families will therefore receive the benefits due them much more quickly and efficiently, all while we ensure greater accountability in the payment process,” Abad said.
He said some P2.4 billion was also released to 208,458 PVAO veterans to cover old age pensions, death pensions, disability pensions, and total administrative disability pensions for the second quarter of the year.
He said the automation of pension payments is one among several initiatives tapping digital technology to strengthen transparency and accountability in the bureaucracy.
“Before we began clearing the list of pension beneficiaries, we found out that hundreds of millions were going to ghost pensioners or deceased retirees every year. Switching from check to ATM payments nipped these anomalies in the bud,” Abad said.
“More important, however, is the fact that we’re able to give better support to our retired military personnel and our war veterans. Such digitization and cashless initiatives ultimately allow us to deliver public services faster and protect government processes from corruption,” he added.
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