Lowering the mandatory and optional retirement age for government employees is not feasible as it would undermine the fund viability of the state-owned Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).
(FACEBOOK / FILE PHOTO)
Nevertheless, the Senate civil service committee would consider all options put forward by several Senate bills, position papers submitted and opinions expressed during its hybrid public hearing, Senator Ramon ‘’Bong’’ Revilla Jr., committee chairman, said.
There are bills filed by senators and congressmen seeking different age levels for mandatory and optional retirement from the current 65 year level to as low as 55.
Senators are also mulling filing a measure increasing the retirement age for members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) from 56 to 60 years old. Aileen Aganon, Department of Budget and Management (DBM) assistant director, cautioned Congress that lowering the mandatory and optional retirement levels would put to the test the solvency of the GSIS.
The GSIS, according to Aganon, does not get budgetary support from the government as it is mandated to be a self-sustaining agency.
Aganon also said that two bills specifically stating that public school teachers may choose optional retirement smacks of class legislation as it violates the equal protection clause of the 1987 Constitution.
There are at present 224,000 government employees with age 55 and above, she said. Lucio Yu Jr. of GSIS said GSIS has 1.9 million members and its actuarial life is 2044. Net worth of GSIS is P1.83 trillion.
He said reducing the retirement age would reduce the fund life of GSIS. He told senators that countries, including Europe, are increasing their mandatory retirement age level, South Korea is trying to increase its retirement age from 60 to 65, Yu added.
Yu advised that retiring at an early age, say 50 years old, means that the pensioner would be getting less that what an employee retiring at an older age would get.
In the last five years, there were 51,082 employees who retired at age of 65 or 32 percent while there were 1,848 employees who retired at the age of 55 or 1.17 percent.
Of the 1.9 million GSIS members, there were 920,000 teachers. A teacher group wanted a retirement age of 60 as they are burned out, stressed out and worked long hours with six hours in actual teaching.
Teachers are also not technology capable compared to the younger teachers as demanded by current communication technology-driven school method of teaching.