PNP: Cases to be filed vs. fake claimants of cops' pension fund

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Police General Archie Francisco Gamboa on Monday warned that cases would be filed against fake claimants of the police organization's pension fund.

According to Gamboa, a total of 1,027 pensioners were discovered to be no longer eligible based on grounds stipulated under the mandate of the PNP pension fund.

"More than 1,000 unqualified pensioners continuously claim from the Philippine National Police Pension Fund. We have identified them in the nationwide accounting of the police organization’s pensioners and we will immediately purge the list to clean the records once and for all," Gamboa said in a press release.

“Cases will be filed against individuals and groups perpetrating these fraudulent claims. The PNP will exhaust all legal means to recover lost pension funds paid to ineligible claimants," he added.

The PNP noted that among those disqualified were beneficiaries who died in 2012 or those who have re-married as far back as 2003 but still continued to claim the pension.

According to the PNP, the accounts of these disqualified and unaccounted pensioners with Landbank, through which they receive their benefits, have been tagged, put on hold and deleted from the pensioner alphalist.

This means that pensions will continue to be credited in these Landbank pension accounts but these funds can not be withdrawn.

The PNP chief earlier ordered the regional directors of the all Police Regional Offices to take the lead in the nationwide accounting of more than 21,000 pensioners who were not able to update their status in 2019 and also failed to avail of the initial nationwide accounting which started last February.

Due to the restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the PNP launched pensioner track-care teams from the PROs to seek out the identified pensioners, instead of asking them to present themselves for accounting. -NB, GMA News