ASAP: the retirement preparedness of Philippine national police (PNP) officers through a looking glass

Abstract

This research delved into the retirement preparedness of five (5) male PNP officers of the Island Garden City of Samal with 15-20 years of service. The study unveils the experiences, accrued challenges, and coping mechanism as they progress toward retirement. Researchers gathered the data through an in-depth face-to-face interview and used thematic analysis to analyze the data extracted from the responses. Four themes emerged to describe the experiences of near-retirement PNP officers: financial discipline, responsibilities, reasons to prepare for retirement, and mandatory and optional investment. Time constraint and indebtedness were the themes for challenges. While appointing a family member as manager, loan mitigation and regular repayment, and acquiring financial knowledge were the themes for coping mechanisms. Two themes emerged for their insights-observation from retired officers and retirement advice. This study confirmed the Life Cycle Theory, Theory of Planned Behavior, and Theory of Mental Accounting, proving that factors like wealth, income expectations, time until retirement, attitudes, beliefs and resource allocation affect the financial behavior and retirement plans of police officers; this confirms the relevance of these factors in understanding retirement preparedness among law enforcement professionals.