(Eagle News) – Pensions of eligible living senior war veterans would be increased from the current P5,000 to P20,000 under the Senate Bill No. 1766 which was approved on Monday by the Senate.
This will benefit some 6,000 still living veterans of World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War who will be now eligible to receive P20,000 monthly pension — representing a 300 percent increase of their previous pension.
The bill’s author and principal sponsor, Senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan said the increase is long overdue for the country’s war veterans “who sacrificed much so that we, their descendants, may live in peace and freedom”
This is an act of gratitude to the World War II Veterans, the Philippine Expeditionary Forces veterans of the Korean War, and the Philippine Civic Action Group veterans of the Vietnam War, he said.
“Soldiers, unlike ordinary mortals, for a great part of the prime of their lives, lived in battlefields, away from their loved ones where, as a World War II veteran writes, they ‘learn the ache of loneliness, the ache of exhaustion, the kinship of misery,’” said the senator who was a former soldier himself.
Honasan noted that the last increase given to these veterans was way back 1994. The monthly pension then was only P1,000.
He said the P15,000 increase under the Senate Bill No. 1766, was not transferable to any member of the veteran’s family or dependents. In case of death of the war veteran, the pension of the surviving spouse would not be increased and would remain at P5,000.
The bill would require a total budget of P1.18 billion, the initial implementation of which would be charged against the budget of the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO) for the current year.
The required budget for the succeeding years would be included in the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA), Honasan said.
