BE IT THE living or dead beneficiaries of ayudas and pension funds of the government, cheats would always be way ahead of the legitimate beneficiaries.
The Commission on Audit (COA) found that for almost 10 years, claimants to pension funds of over 7,210 dead pensioners have been collected from the Armed Forces of the Philippines Pension and Gratuity Management Center, totaling P615 million.
Reflected in the 2023 COA report dated December 1, 2024 and released recently, it mentioned that from 2014 to 2023, the AFP paid out this much to dead pensioners, as it faulted the AFPPGMC for being remiss in updating its database.
This is considered by the state auditors as “excess payments” involving 7,210 pensioners.
The outstanding and uncollected accounts of AFPPGMC aged one to nine years as of December 31, consisting of overpayments of pension benefits to deceased pensioners totaling P615,641,568.54.
DRAWN FOR DEAD PENSIONERS?
While the AFPPGMC clarified that it has successfully updated 168,242 pensioners’ records during the audit year, exceeding its target of 139,832 accounts by 20.32 percent, the audit team said the excess payments “deprives the government of beneficial use of funds and affects the fairness of the presentation of the financial statements.”
Verification by the COA of the pension payments released in 2021 revealed at least five deceased pensioners continued receiving pension for 14 to 25 months after they passed away.
For payments made in 2022, there were 193 pensioners who collected P55.706 million in pension payments six to 15 months after their recorded deaths.
For 2023, auditors traced 66 deceased pensioners’ accounts that continued getting paid six to nine months after their demise with a total payout of P13.87 million.
Auditors recognized that other than the challenges in regularly updating the status of living pensioners, relatives of the former AFP personnel are also part of the issue.
According to existing policies, updating a pensioner’s account is only done once a year, usually two months before the account holder’s birthday.
[P]ension payments released in 2021 revealed at least five deceased pensioners continued receiving pension for 14 to 25 months after they passed away.
NO ERROR-FREE SYSTEM
COA said the AFPPGMC has failed to delete pensioners’ accounts after updating their status for three months after being tagged.
Though the auditors acknowledge that there is no error-free system of monitoring and updating the pensioners’ status, they asked the AFPPGMC to conduct frequent follow-up validations of non-updating pensioners to reduce the number of deposits of pension payments for the accounts of deceased members.
It asked that efforts be exerted to recover the payouts to accounts if the withdrawals were done after the pensioner’s death.
As of May 2, 2024, the AFPPGMC informed the COA that verification of bank statements from the Land Bank of the Philippines involving 264 accounts was already ongoing and recovery procedures would be done if proven to be overpayments.
AS FOR AKAP…
This late, the social welfare department still has to have the complete list of beneficiaries to the Ayuda sa Kapos and Kita Program (AKAP), to be funded by the largesse alloted by legislators as pork barrel for their projects and programs.
Referrals from organizations, politicians and other institutions would not guarantee that the names included in their list would receive financial assistance, the agency said.
Since the May midterm elections are just around the bend, leaks of the supposed list would be floated and money will be flowing (AKAP or not) in exchange for votes.
“Would-be AKAP beneficiaries are not easily identifiable because we need to ascertain if indeed these individuals earning no more than the statutory minimum wage but are affected by inflation and need such assistance,” said DSWD Assistant Secretary Irene Dumlao.