In the wake of President Benigno Aquino III’s expose of anomalies in the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), the water utility agency released on Tuesday an estimated P78 million for its retired workers.
The fund release is however merely the third tranche of payments, worth 15 percent of the estimated total of P520 million, to be given to workers who served the agency for 20 years or more.
With the latest release, a total of 40 percent in payments has been received by 1,300 workers, including those who took a separate early retirement incentive package when the MWSS was privatized in 1997.
The remaining 60 percent is expected to be paid in several tranches.
First payment disallowed
The first payment — worth 10 percent of the total — was made in the last quarter of 2001 while the second was in the second quarter of 2009, employees of the MWSS's Corporate Office said.
However, the first payment was disallowed in 2002 by the Commission on Audit (COA), which said that the workers already availed of a previous retirement package.
This prompted the workers to contest the disallowance in a lower court, citing Republic Act 1616.
The law requires government agencies to pay retirement benefits — equal to one year of service — to employees who have served 20 years or more.
The early retirement incentive package in 1997 was "severance pay" and not retirement benefits, Jovencio Fulgueras, a lawyer, told GMANews.TV on Tuesday.
After all, it was the national government that decided to privatize the MWSS, he added.
The workers' case reached the Supreme Court, which in 2008, ruled in their favor.
The recipients are informally called the "RA 1616 claimants," after the said law.
Most of the RA 1616 claimants have also chosen to take early retirement offered to them during the MWSS privatization in 1997.
Those who served the MWSS for up to 15 years received one and a half times their latest salary for every year of service, Feliciano Talastas, one of the claimants, said.
Talastas added that those who worked at the MWSS for more than 20 years received twice their latest salary for every year of service.
Immediately before undergoing privatization in 1997, the MWSS employed 9,000 employees. After it allowed two companies to distribute water in Metro Manila, the MWSS was cut into two offices — the MWSS Corporate Office and the MWSS Regulatory Office.
Both offices currently employ a total of 130 workers, all of whom are members of the MWSS labor union.
Worker difficulties in claiming benefits
Despite additional compensation and the latest payment, some beneficiaries remain unsatisfied.
Workers are finding it difficult to claim their benefits, Francisco Torrefiel, who had served MWSS for 24 years when he retired in 1997, told GMANews.TV in a separate interview.
The MWSS' human resources department has required them to fill up a form at its office, a task that retirees may be unable to comply with.
"Some of us live in Mindanao. Others are in Bulacan," Torrefiel said. "How are we going to claim payments? Why can't they simplify the process?"
The release of the latest trance apparently came in the wake of President Aquino’s scathing attack on the MWSS board of trustees in his State of the Nation Address to the 15th Congress on Monday. (See: SONA: English translation of Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III's State of the Nation Address)
In his speech, Aquino revealed that while the agency was “in arrears for the pensions of (its) retired employees," each member of the board gets around P2.5 million a year for attending meetings, "grocery incentive," mid-year bonus, productivity bonus, anniversary bonus, and year-end bonuses, apart from other year-round perks.
No one from the MWSS human resources department was available to answer queries regarding this matter as of posting time.—JV
