Veterans' pensions can now be home-delivered

Instead of going to the bank to withdraw their monthly pensions, military pensioners can now have the luxury of receiving their monthly retirement fund in cash right in the comfort of home.

These are just some of the innovations currently being implemented by the Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB), in coordination with the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO), to do away with the hassles every old-aged pensioner goes through every month to claim pension.

Under this new scheme, the PVB, in partnership with a service courier provider, would deliver the pension of veterans to their respective homes.

“This is good for our old pensioners because the bank would now go to them instead of them going to the bank,” PVAO administrator and Defense Undersecretary Ernesto Carolina said.

At present, Carolina said PVAO is attending to at least 40,000 World War II veterans nationwide, the youngest of them is 85 years old and could barely travel long distances without a companion.

Because of this, Carolina said PVAO and PVB forged a memorandum of agreement to look for ways to make life easier for these veterans.

PVB, also in coordination with PVAO, earlier provided 24-hour services automated teller machines (ATMs) through Megalink, Bancnet and Expressnet, where old pensioners could withdraw their retirement funds.

Interested old-age pensioners who want to avail of this new ATM service can enroll in any of the 45 PVB branches nationwide.

The PVB said they have a fixed P100 fee per door-to-door delivery transaction.