Diokno says MUP can be redundant, problematic plan

FINANCE Secretary Benjamin Diokno has said the contentious military and uniformed personnel (MUP) pension program was already being allocated more funds than the military’s budget for its operations Diokno issue the observation during the briefing of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) on the proposed 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP.

“I think if you let this through, the next administration will be faced with a huge problem. In fact, the current situation now is that the amount we allocate for the military pension is much higher than the current operating budget of the military. That is how heavy it is already,” he said.

Under the 2024 NEP, the government proposes to allocate P164 billion for the MUP pension, reflecting a 3.5-percent increase from thefunding for benefits this year. This is fully funded by the government, without any direct contributions from the MUPs themselves.

“The pension system that is for the military is not a real pension system in the following sense — there are no contributors,” Diokno noted.

“A pension system is where the beneficiaries of the pension system contribute to the system and there is a government counterpart, okay, but in this particular sense, there is no contribution in the part of the beneficiaries, and we only appropriate it annually,” he clarified.

The MUP pension program was among the key measures cited by President Ferdinand Jr. in his State of the Nation Address last month.

The President pushed for “self-regenerating” pension plans for both the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) in a bid to avoid depletion of funds.

Diokno also noted that with the pension system having no contributionsfrom MUPs, liabilities has already been estimated at P9 trillion versus the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) of around P20 trillion.