After 22 years, some 145 former employees of the state-owned Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) have finally received their retirement pay upon President Marcos' orders, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) announced on Saturday, May 4.
PCO Secretary Cheloy Garafil shakes hands with one of the IBC employees who received his retirement pay. (Photo from the Presidential Communications Office)
In her speech during the awarding ceremony last Friday, May 3, PCO Secretary Cheloy Garafil stressed the President’s role in releasing the long-awaited retirement pay of the former media workers, some 25 of whom have already passed away before they could receive their pay.
“The President gave the instruction to help resolve their claims as addressing the welfare of media workers is one of the cornerstones of his administration and of the PCO. So it is a great honor for me to be able to be part of this much-awaited and much-deserved awarding of benefits to our colleagues in the media,” she said.
The retirement pay came after over two decades since the employees, who waited for 22 years and 28 management teams, left the state-run IBC-13.
The media corp., along with government-owned media companies Peoples Television Network and the Presidential Broadcast Service-Bureau of Broadcast Services, form the media arm of the PCO.
IBC-13 President and CEO Jimmie Policarpio said that the retirement pay benefited around 200 families as many of the retirees are already on maintenance medicines or face a host of medical problems.
Some are also “gravely ill,” Policarpio said.
“With spirits of thanksgiving, they can now look forward to enjoying their waning years with dignity and pride in having served God, country and people.”
Policarpio then thanked Marcos for making the workers’ retirement pay a priority of his administration.
The Senate of the Philippines, especially Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri and Senators Koko Pimentel, Jinggoy Estrada, and JV Ejercito who sponsored the bill that made the payment possible, was also mentioned in his speech.
The IBC-13 management also thanked House Speaker Martin Romualdez, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, and the Governance Council for Government Owned and Controlled Corporations (GCG), headed by Chairman Marius Corpus.