Press Release
October 4, 2006

Transcript of Sen. Biazon's press conference on AFP RSBS

I think there is a need for dnd sec avelino cruz to explain to the public what he meant when he said he is going to stop the operations of rsbs.. the rsbs was created by pres decree in 1972 and therefore it is part of the laws of the land and it can not be dissolved by the executive dept, it will take a legislative action if indeed the decisions is to dissolve the rsbs

This am I received a lot of tex mesges from soldiers and they are asking what will happento their contribution and what about those who had been found to may have beem guilty in the management of the rsbs fund, if this issue is not carefully explained to the soldiers, this could be another issue that could produce instability in the ranks of the armed forces because many of the tex messages to me are saying... will they receive back their money.

.remember they are contributing 5 percent of their basic salary to the fund although the fund is returned to them after retirement but if the operations of the rsbs will be stopped the soldiers are asking that their contributions will be returned to them..there is a law, that these contributions when returned to the soldiers should earn 6% per annum

if the fund will be liquidated, will there be sufficient funds to be returned to the soldiers..may pera pa ba..ang tanong ng mga kawal na patuloy nagtetex sa akin sabi nila ibalik lang sa amin ang pera..papano na ang mga may kasalanan doon sa pagkawala ng malaking pera sa rsbs..there are still pending cases before the Sandiganbayan of the previous managers of the fund, this is another issue being raised by soldiers..iyon ba nakakalimutan na natin yung mga may kasalana sa pagkawala ng pondo ng rsbs.. sec of defense and military leadership should explain not only to the pub esp soldiers

I have filed this am a resolution no 574 for the conduct of an inquiry on the issue of what to do with the fund.. questions to be answered..how much is still available.. what to do with the fund.. two years ago I had conducted an inquiry and asked Sec of Defense to submit to the committee proposals on what to do with the fund because there are certain possibilities to be considered, one is to restructure the rsbs because as it is structured now, it can never assume the responsibility to pay the retirement pension of retirees, second is it could be dissolved, in which case, it will have to be the government who will shoulder the retirement benefits of retired soldiers.. this requirement is increasing and there might come a time when the govt will not be able to afford the payment of the benefits and pensions.. what will happen then..

As far as I can remember just after I retired in 1991 the fund was assessed at more than 18 Billion ..but when I conducted a hearing four years ago, the fund was reduced to 11 Billion instead of growing to hundreds of billions this had been reduced because of lossess to investments..in 1974, the fund invested 500 Million with Philippine Airlines, that four years instead of the 500 Mil it should be growing to Billions, as per the estimate of bankers it should have grown to 32 Billion today,

last time I knew, that 500 Mil had been reduced to 35 Million..nalugi..you might remember lossess in real estate business, twin towers where they had to consider property swap which also lead to lossess..investment to many golf courses where face value has diminished..rsbs instead of growing through investment resulted in lossess..

There are about 115,000 soldiers in the active service..magkano ibabablik sa kanila..mababalik ba sa kanila lahat ng contribution nila or hindi..ito ang agam agam ng mga sundalo.

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