‘POOR’ appeals for Senate’s support

We, the fast-diminishing remnants of the country’s decades-long underprivileged “members of POOR” (pension-less old-age and optional retirees under Republic Act No. 1616), most respectfully make this urgent appeal principally to our Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto and to the other senators of the 16th Congress: Please revive and steer Senate Bill No. 2854 (titled the GSIS Members’ Rights and Benefits Act of 2011), together with our proposed amendments, to a positive final disposition so that the injustice and inequity imprisoning us POOR members may be remedied.

The bill was filed in the Senate Committee on Government Corporations and Public Enterprises, which was chaired by Senator Recto, during the 15th Congress. It was cosponsored by more than 20 honorable senators.

But sadly the bill was shoved out of public consciousness by the riveting Corona impeachment trial, by the heated but oftentimes funny skirmishes between and among senators, and by the other explosive proposed legislation, such as the reproductive health and the sin tax bills.

Several times we have written the office of Senator Recto about this: on July 23, 2013, Oct. 24, 2012, Oct. 17, 2012, Aug. 21, 2012, March 12, 2012, Oct. 29, 2011 about the need for this law.

There are a whole slew of constitutional, legal, financial and humanitarian justifications for the early passage of a “revived” bill.

—BUENAVENTURA
(BOY BUEN) SEMILLA
advocate, Sector of the Poor
Cebu Chapter of the Philippine Association of Retired Persons buensem@gmail.com