PVAO: Funding for veteran soldiers’ pension hike stands at P900 million

The new law which increases the month pension of senior veteran soldiers of World War 2 as well as the Korean and Vietnam wars by four times would require a budget of P900 million this year, the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO) said Friday.

PVAO Administrator Ernesto Carolina made the announcement on the same day that he disputed the Commission on Audit report showing that PVAO paid P70 million worth of pension fund to over 5,000 dead veterans, saying that the entirety of his fund remains under PVAO’s custody.

Carolina said that PVAO’s stringent measures in disbursing pension fund—which include working with Philippine Statistics Authority, Philippine Post, Veterans Federation across the country, the government banks, requiring the submission of proof of life to PVAO by submitting an update form containing their photo with a newspaper of the day, gathering biometric data, among others—have been very effective that PVAO can already fund the increase in pension for senior veterans even without a new allocation for such measure under the national budget for 2019.

‘The funding requirement for the increased pension of senior veterans is P900 million. ‘Yung batas, kailan lang naipasa, kaya hindi pa kasama sa 2019 budget. Pero sinabi ko sa DBM na hindi na ako hihingi ng pera roon [sa national budget] kasi ang laki ng recovery namin [ng pension fund]. At least P1 billion,” Carolina said, referring to the Department of Budget and Management.

The new law, signed by President Rodrigo Duterte, in January, increases the monthly pension of senior veteran soldiers of World War 2 as well as the Korean and Vietnam wars from P5,000 a month to P20,000 monthly.

Veteran soldiers eligible for this benefit, however, should not be be receiving pension from the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Moreover, this increase will be limited to the veterans and is non-transferrable to their next of kin.

“We asked for a specific authority from DBM [to use our recovered pension funds], at okay sila roon,” Carolina added. — MDM, GMA News