THE dictionary defines fraud as “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.”
Just like any insurance company, the Social Security System (SSS) is also a target of fraudsters and it is for this reason that the agency has an antifraud unit to guard it against impostors and fakers.
Recently, there was an attempt by someone, whom I shall call Mr. L, to defraud SSS of death benefits. Purporting to be the surviving spouse of a bona fide member, who had allegedly died, Mr. L filed funeral-and death-benefit claims with supporting documents. With antifraud measures in place, the SSS found the claims to be spurious and discovered that the member was very much alive!
A case was filed against Mr. L and the court found him guilty of falsification of public documents. Aside from imprisonment, the court ordered him to pay a fine of P5,000 plus the cost of the suit for violation of the Social Security Act and the Revised Penal Code.
I remember the story of one of our employees in the Fraud Investigation Department (FID) who said their unit received an anonymous report of a family that has been receiving death-benefit pensions for several years now but the “deceased” pensioner is living in a rice field in a nearby province.
Based on this report, a two-man team from the FID conducted an investigation and while questioning the family involved, our team had to run for their lives. An old man with a bolo was running toward them. At first, our team was not aware of the situation until someone shouted to them “Dagan! Naay sundang! Naay sundang!” (Run! He’s got a bolo! He’s got a bolo!)
Although shaken by the incident, our FID people did not stop the investigation. With policemen in tow, our investigators returned the week after the bolo incident and gathered firsthand evidence proving that the supposedly deceased pensioner was still alive. A fraud case was filed against the family and the member.
It truly does not pay to violate the law!
Take the case of a security agency located in the province of La Union, whose owner was sentenced by the Regional Trial Court of San Fernando to 20 years imprisonment for failing to remit the social security contributions of his security guards. He denied his ownership of the agency after he was sued in court for being delinquent in the payment of his employees’ premiums from September 2010 to March 2011.
In his attempt to be exonerated, he contended that as operations manager, he was a mere employee of the security agency and, therefore, should not be faulted for non-remittance of SSS premiums. However, evidences pointed to him as the registered owner of the company. The fact that he deducted his employees’ share of contributions but did not remit them to SSS, made him liable for estafa under Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code.
As author Frederick William Robertson said, “There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy—hypocrisy, fraud and tyranny.”
For more information about the SSS and its programs, call our 24-hour call center at (632) 920-6446 to 55, Monday to Friday, or send an e-mail to member_relations@sss.gov.ph.
Susie G. Bugante is the vice president for public affairs and special events of the Social Security System. Send comments about this column to susiebugante.bmirror@gmail.com.