By Gina Tabonares
Variety News Staff

GOVERNMENT retirees who are members of the cost of living allowance class are no longer optimistic that they will get their benefits soon despite legislative measures and government pronouncements that they will get their COLA payments to comply with a court order.
COLA class lead counsel Mike Phillips expressed doubt that retirees will get their checks in the near future in the face of a public announcement that claimants of 1998 earned income tax credit will finally get their checks within a week.
“There are no indications that any payment is going to be made,” Phillips said in an interview on Newstalk K57’s Breakfast Show with Ray Gibson.
While he said he was confident that the COLA class settlement will not be affected by the motion filed by other taxpayers acting as intervenors, Phillips is not optimistic that the governor or the Legislature will make the COLA payment of $123 million as ordered by Superior Court Judge Arthur Barcinas.
He added that the hearing for the motion filed by intervening taxpayers will be held by the end of April.
A bill that will help retirees get their COLA payment, introduced by Sen. Jesse Lujan, R-Tamuning, did not inspire 58-year-old retiree Elizabeth Terry to get her hopes up for her “long overdue “allowance.
“Our patience and hopes are running thin already. After a tiring and almost endless court hearing, we tried to revive our enthusiasm that we might finally get our COLA but the situation is different now. The government doesn’t have money. We really don’t know when to expect it. We just stopped hoping for it,” Terry told Variety yesterday.
It’s been four months since Judge Barcinas ordered the Camacho administration to pay the 4,000 COLA class members more than $123 million after 13 years of litigation, but the government is still at a loss where to get the funding.
Several legislative measures have been introduced only to be put off with precautions that a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision might affect these actions.
Attorney General Alicia Limtiaco recommended waiting for the high tribunal’s decision before the government steps into any bond floats.
Consistent with his earlier court order, Judge Barcinas ordered respondents in the 13-year-old case to pay COLA class sums due for the payments under former 4 GCA 8137.1 that had been due in July 1991, July 1992, July 1993 , July 1994, and July 1995.
The payments should represent adjustments for inflation using 1988 as the base year, including calendar years 1990 to 1994.
Judge Barcinas reiterated that the source of the COLA payments shall be the general fund and a legal fee of 10 percent from the sum of the payment should be paid to the Law Offices of Phillips & Bordallo.