The Bacolod City Council requested Congress to study and consider amendments to Republic Act No. (RA) 8291 (GSIS Law) and related laws on retirement packages in the public sector.
This includes allowing voluntary contributions for elected officials who have served one, two or three terms in office to complete the minimum 15 years of premium contribution to the GSIS, and the lowering of the optional retirement age for government workers.
The resolution cited a study on the GSIS retirement packages under RA 8291 that was presented to Philippine Councilor’s League (PCL) as basis for policy agenda at the 11th National Convention at the World Trade Center last March. (https://tinyurl.com/56ejz5f8)
The study compared the retirement packages of the GSIS members vis-à-vis the retirement packages in the private sector in terms of computation, difference in benefits, and economic factors affecting the retirement pay.
Based on the study, a huge gap exists between the retirement benefits provided for employees in the public sector and employees in the private sector mainly due to, among others, the basis for computing the same, which is the average monthly compensation (AMC) for the last three years, in the case of retirees from the public sector, thereby resulting to an amount lower than one month of the last monthly salary; while that of the private sector is pegged at one month or more of the last monthly salary, hence, the latter is higher in computation, the resolution said.
There is also a strong clamor among the constituents represented by the PCL to lower the optional retirement age for government workers, similar to the clamor of those gathered from the formal and informal consultations conducted with local government units (LGUs), Human Resource Management practitioners, employees’ associations, and other government agencies, it said.
Research shows that the Philippines is one of the countries with the oldest optional retirement age for government workers among its ASEAN counterparts.
Lowering the optional retirement age for government workers would provide opportunities for others and allow retirees to enjoy the fruits of their labor at an earlier stage of their lives, the resolution said.