A vice chairman of the Special House Committee on Senior Citizen on Sunday urged the government to create a prototype financial institution that will implement reforms in the veterans pension system.
Senior Citizen Party-list Rep. Francisco Datol Jr. said a joint subsidiary of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) and the Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB) could be created to develop and initially implement reforms of the veterans’ pension system.
Datol, also a member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs and Welfare, said the reforms should include new entrants or retirees and another for older retirees.
“The groundwork for reforming and updating the military and uniformed personnel pension and benefits system can be done by the GSIS and the Veterans Bank,” Datol said. “By groundwork, I mean a joint subsidiary of the two government financial institutions. This subsidiary can be tasked to set up the mechanisms, tools, and processes needed for an updated pensions system for the veterans of our armed services.”
Datol added the subsidiary and its results “would be effective ways to prove to Congress that the new system put forward in the administration-endorsed Recto bill (SBN 1451) will work as designed.”
“The proof of the pudding is in the eating so the old adage goes. Serve the pudding first,” Datol said. “If it tastes good, looks good, and nutritious, then Congress will authorize by law its continuity.”
According to the lawmaker, the legal cases of the proposal can be laid out in an executive order.
“For initial legal authority to create the joint subsidiary, the DOF [Department of Finance] and DBM [Department of Budget and Management] can have President Duterte issue an executive order,” Datol said. “This way, we quickly produce results which veterans themselves can directly evaluate.”
The lawmaker said the provisions of the bill “look good on paper but will look even better if the DOF and DBM will show how it works in real life, not just in theory.”
Datol said the GSIS-PVB subsidiary can “test drive the front end and back end of the changes before massive rollout on a national scale.”