Lowering compulsory, optional retirement age for gov't employees must be sustainable—senator says

The bill seeking to lower the compulsory and optional retirement age for government personnel requires a comprehensive study to ensure that the policy would be sustainable as majority of public workers are deemed supportive of the measure.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian (Senate PRIB Photo) 

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian pointed this out during the Senate Committee on Civil Services’ hearing on the Senate Bill No. 944 which seeks to amend Republic Act No. 8291 or the Government Service Insurance Act of 1997.

The measure aims to lower the compulsory and optional retirement age of government employees from 65 to 60 and from 60 to 55, respectively. Its counterpart bill has already been approved by the House of Representatives in January this year.

“It seems everyone supports the reduction of mandatory and compulsory age retirement and everyone agrees that upon retirement, the basis of pension computation should be one salary grade higher,” Gatchalian said during the public hearing. 

“The sustainability of such a pension design boils down to the computation of the life of the fund,” the Senate Committee on Ways and Means chairman also said.

“Also, if you want to maintain the life of the fund, I want to know how much the government is going to subsidize in terms of equity as both proposals call for an early payout or a bigger payout,” the senator explained, referring to the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), which provides social security coverage for public sector workers.

“That’s why we will need the GSIS to enlighten us and provide us with the computations,” he added.

Gatchalian pointed out there is a separate measure that calls for the automatic promotion of government officials and employees upon retirement from government service.

As chairperson of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, the senator said he has been receiving calls for Congress to pass a law that would allow public school teachers to retire early.

But Gatchalian urged the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to first study the pension systems in different countries and determine the best practices. 

“We need to find out the best practices being done in other countries in terms of civil servant retirement so we will have an idea of how other jurisdictions are doing this. Some trends are changing such as life expectancy which will affect pension schemes and we should study those very carefully,” he said.

“If approved into law, there will be employment opportunities for more Filipinos, particularly the younger generation who are more adept in new methods and technological advancements which are now becoming essential in the workplace,” the lawmaker pointed out.