It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

It’s actually way overdue.

Retirees have richly earned their keep. Let them enjoy it now while they are still in the world.

We are specifically referring to retired justices — honorable men and women who have absolutely nothing to do with the current row between the Executive department and the top officials of the Judiciary.

In military terms, they are not combatants. They are, in fact, caught in the crossfire, collateral damage in this raging Executive-Judicial conflict.

And they don’t need the aggravation, the indignity of having to beg for something already theirs by law – especially now that the country is supposedly celebrating the most wonderful time of the year, the season of cheer.

We say these because simply because it would be ironically unchristian not to.    

Depriving these justices of their rightful benefits would only strengthen public suspicion that the Aquino administration is really out to punish a separate but co-equal branch of government just because its current top leaders do not agree with Executive policies.           

And so if only on this score, both conscience and common sense dictate that we have to take the side of the Supreme Court in ordering the Department of Budget and Management to explain its refusal to release the benefits due retired justices.

In a two-page resolution, the SC asked the DBM to submit its explanation within 10 days upon receipt of the resolution.

Last October, retired justices of the Court of Appeals petitioned the Supreme Court to order the DBM to release the salary increases and special allowance for the judiciary for the retired justices for January to December.

In its five-page petition for mandamus, the Association of Retired Court of Appeals Justices led by its president, Teodoro Regino, claimed that Budget Secretary Florencio Abad “wilfully continues to refuse or neglect and still unlawfully refuses and fails to fund and release the salary increases and the special allowance for the retired justices for 10 months now.”

Petitioner said that due to Abad’s continued refusal, the members of the association have suffered undue injury and damage including moral, nominal, temperate, exemplary and corrective.

“Such damages,” petitioner said, “are to be assessed by the SC as a personal liability of respondent.’’