PARTY-LIST Rep. Carlos Isagani T. Zarate of Bayan Muna has enumerated five ways to ensure that the Social Security System (SSS) can finance the P2,000 increase for pensioners, while lengthening its fund life.
These, he added, are the following: improve its collection efficiency from employers covering 29 million members from the current 38 percent to between 76 percent and 80 percent; collect the billions of pesos in contributions that delinquent employers failed to remit in the last 10 years; cut down in bonuses and perks given to board members and collect the more than P200 million from the retirement package given to SSS board members in 2009; collect the fines imposed by the courts against employers who violated the SSS law; if these were not enough, Congress can always provide for subsidies as provided under Section 20 of Republic Act (RA) 8282, as amended.
“Furthermore, the SSS has P428 billion in its investment fund, which generates an investment income of an average of P32 billion per year. With this, the net revenue of the SSS in 2014 was a huge P44.47 billion and its assets amounted to nearly P500 billion. As it is, there is no way that the SSS will go bankrupt, as the SSS wants people to believe. In fact, under Section 21 of RA 8282, the Philippine government guarantees the benefits and solvency of the SSS,” the Bayan Muna lawmaker argued.
“The SSS also admitted several times that it has the funds for the pension increase. The increase, it added, will only shorten its fund life to 2029. Now, the system is saying it is 2025, instead of the current 2042. Assuming this were true, nine to 14 years is more than enough time for the government and the SSS to find ways to increase its fund life. In 2001 the SSS declared that it has a fund life of only five years and, yet, it was able to increase this to 2042 in just 14 years. If it previously survived a five-year fund life, then surely it can also survive a 14-year fund life. In truth, we are in a better shape than the United Kingdom, which has a fund life of only up to 2027, and Canada, which has a fund life of 2022, or merely seven years,” he said.
The inadequacy of the minimum pension to the actual needs of the pensioners could never be overemphasized. The minimum monthly pension, ranging from P1,000 to P1,200, or even P2,400 for those who contributed for 20 years, would not buy our pensioners decent food, much more provide for their maintenance medicines, which would cost thousands of pesos a month. Ibon Databank said a member of a family of six in the National Capital Region (NCR) needs at least P5,033 a month for basic needs. Pitting the need for pension increase versus the alleged decreased fund life of the SSS as the former leadership of the SSS had done, is not only outright insensitive, but a violation of the SSS mandate ‘to manage a sound and viable Social Security System, which shall promote social justice and provide meaningful protection to members and their families against the hazards of disability, sickness, maternity, old age, death and other contingencies,’” Zarate said.
“Kitang-kita naman po na kulang na kulang ang pension ng mga seniors natin. Wag na po itong baratin at utay-utayin, dahil ngayon na nila kailangan ang P2,000 para sa kanilang mga gamot at pagkain. Mas mahalaga po ang buhay kesa sa pera,” he said.