PNP wage hike mere ‘sound bite’ – Lacson

THE promise of Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Ronald de la Rosa to quadruple the salaries of police retirees should not be taken seriously, some senators said Monday. Sen. Panfilo Lacson considered the PNP chief’s statement a mere sound bite because it would be very difficult to implement.

“Good sound bite. The hardest thing is doing the math,” said Lacson, who heads the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs.

The senator noted that the Sen- ate has requested the Armed Forces of the Philippines and PNP to submit the actual number of retirees in order to validate the claim of. the Department of Budget that at least P5 trillion is needed to fund the annual pension requirements of the uniformed services. Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto 3rd agreed that the PNP chief must have been joking because he is aware of the situation in relation with the retirees pay. “He was just joking. Alamnyang yun retirees pay aykumakainna

ngkalahating budget ng AFP and PNP (He knows that retirees pay is already consuming half of the budget of the AFP and PNP),” Sotto said in a text message.

The PNP chief also denied proposing that police retirees should not be granted a pension increase.

“There were rumors circulating that we submitted a proposition paper in Malacañang to not include the police retirees in the increase of salary. I didn’t do such a thing,” de la Rosa said in a speech in Camp Crame on Monday.

He told policemen that there are rumors that he was deliberately “neglecting” the police retirees in getting an increase of pension.

“I don’t know if that was the general sentiment of the retirees or if it was a personal attack against me,” de la Rosa said.

He said he merely asked the Budget department to suggest ideas that would

“If I get to decide, I’d quadruple your salaries. Wait for me to become president,” de la Rosa joked.