CLARK FREEPORT – Employees of the state-run Clark Development Corp. (CDC) and the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) are reportedly filing for early retirement en-masse.
Sources said more than 80 workers or about 11.4 percent of the total number of 700 employees at the CDC and an undetermined number of CIAC workers have already filed their early retirements in order to obtain more benefits from their Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) with the government owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs).
Sources said members of the Association of CDC Supervisory Personnel (ACSP), Samahan ng mga Manggagawa DMIA (SMD) at CIAC and the Association of Concerned CDC Employees (ACCES) are opting for early retirements before management adopts a Commission on Audit (COA) observation that GOCCs should comply only with the minimum requirement provided by law under Republic Act 7641 otherwise known as The Retirement Pay Law which governs retirement pay to qualified private sector employees.
RA 7641 provides that employees shall be entitled to retirement pay equivalent to at least one-half (1/2) month salary for every year of service starting from five to 20 years of service.
But sources said the Retirement Program contained in the CBAs with the said GOCCs in their Personnel Policy Manual states under the Optional Retirement that “a regular employee may, at his option, avail of the Optional Retirement Program regardless of age provided that he rendered at least five years in service” with five to nine years obtaining 100 percent of basic monthly pay per year of service; 10-14 years 125 percent; 15 – 19 years 150 percent; 20-25 years 175 percent; and 26 years and above 200 percent.
The sources said employees are jittery with their respective management considering the reported impending implementation of the COA observation. Some employees of CDC who requested not to be named for fear of reprisal said the management should have pushed for their rights in the CBA instead of just following the COA observation.
An ACPS union officer said their old CBA is still in effect considering that the new CBA is being contested by CDC in the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, CDC vice president for finance Noel F. Manankil has refused to comment on the issue.
