PVAO assures pensioners funds not lost to dead beneficiaries
The Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO) assured the public and all its beneficiaries yesterday that none of its funds are being lost or released to dead pensioners.
Ferdinand Palor, the agency’s chief finance officer, clarified that the Commission on Audit (COA) report stating that P54.9 million in pension was released to deceased beneficiaries in 2015 and 2016 does not mean that the money would not be recovered.
The amount actually represents “over-remitted pension in the bank accounts of pensioners who are undergoing validation process and whose pensions are on suspended status pending submission of proof of life.”
As of March 2017 only P20.2 million or 0.2 percent of PVAO’s annual pension disbursements amounting to P10 billion remains to be reverted back to the agency’s coffers, Palor said.
The pension is remitted to servicing banks based on a Pensioners Master List (PML) which is updated every month to reflect changes like the addition of new beneficiaries and the deletion of the names of those who have died.
Deletion of dead pensioners in the list depends on a process which includes the receipt of reports of death occurrences from the pensioner’s surviving heirs.
The bulk of the over-remitted pensions are deposited in the pension accounts of suspended pensioners in various banks which cannot be computed to determine how much should go to the heirs and how much has to be returned to PVAO until after a death certificate is secured.
“Hence, it takes a while before the procedures are completed to credit back the overremittance to the PVAO servicing accounts. Meanwhile, these accounts are on hold status and cannot be withdrawn,” he noted.
The PVAO is doing its best to speed-up the process and is now actually implementing a so-called Direct Remittance Pension Servicing System (DRPSS) which has eliminated the problem of ghost pensioners brought about by the old system of delivering pension checks to beneficiaries by mail.
“Billion of pesos have been saved by the government since embarking on the DRPSS,” he noted, adding that PVAO has entered into a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Philippine Postal Corp. which undertakes regular home visitations and verifications of pensioners.