Letters to the Editor
At SSS, incentives for officials, higher contributions for members
LAST WEEK, Emilio de Quiros Jr., president and CEO of the Social Security System (SSS), admitted that he and seven others in the nine-member Social Security Commission (SSC) got huge bonuses as part of the so-called performance-based incentive (PBI) given as a reward for the state-run pension fund’s accomplishment in 2012, when it posted a net income of P36.2 billion or a year-onyear increase of 42 percent.
De Quiros, who is also the concurrent vice chair of the SSC, the governing board of the SSS, further justified the commissioners’ “windfall reward” for a supposedly job well done, emphasizing that SSS employees who passed the performance evaluation also received bonuses, and the PBI is authorized by law and specified by Memorandum Circulars 2012-14 and 2012-11 issued by the Governing Commission for GOCCs (GCG), the government agency that oversees government-owned and -controlled corporations like the SSS.
We, the members and leaders of the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) and its mother labor center, the newly established Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa (Sentro), express our disgust and alarm over this unconscionable and scandalous “bonus.” The Filipino people are still reeling from the shock and anger over themisuse of billions or possibly trillions of pesos of public funds from the Priority Development Assistance Fund, Disbursement Acceleration Program, Malampaya Fund and other presidential pork barrels; and millions of SSS members are facing a mandatory increase in contributions starting January next year, as well as the planned additional premiums every two years.
It is ironic that while the SSC boasts of billions of pesos in net income—the basis for the P9.4-million bonuses for the SSS commissioners and P276-million bonuses for qualified SSS employees—SSS management says that the pension fund has an astounding P1.1 trillion “unfunded liabilities” or future financial obligations that have no funds yet, thus the purported need for a series of hikes in the contributions of SSS members. Thus, isn’t the granting of generous, if not appalling, perks a case of “premature celebration” among SSS executives?
It is ironic that while the SSC boasts of billions of pesos in net income, SSS management says that it has
P1.1 trillion ‘unfunded liabilities’
Belonging to a “Class A” GOCC, every SSS commissioner is paid P40,000 every board meeting he/she attends and P24,000 per committee meeting, or an annual maximum of P960,000. Indeed, the gaping and unjust income divide and privileges between ordinary workers and employers are also happening even in a pension fund called SSS, which is bankrolled by private sector workers.
Sentro and APL express our deep solidarity with the SSS members, the “lowly” workers who patiently and diligently pay their contributions despite meager benefits and pensions in return. They are the true and principal SSS benefactors and the ones who keep alive this pension fund.
Sentro and APL reiterate this resolve and principled stand even if one of our top leaders—Daniel Edralin, the chair and vice chair of APL and Sentro, respectively—sits as one of the three labor representatives in the SSC. To be fair to him, the APL and Sentro proudly wish the public to know, especially the SSS members, that Edralin has not accepted the “bonus.”
Sentro and APL call all the members of the SSC, especially those who represent the workers, to do the honorable thing. They owe it to theirmembers or theworkers and SSS members they represent to reject these unreasonable bonuses—or return them to the SSS coffers if they already have received them.
While the “incentives” are allowed under the rules and were sanctioned by the GCG or even endorsed by Malacañang, they are nonetheless outrageous, if not outright immoral and an affront to ordinary workers, the SSS members. For such huge bonuses are way beyond what these workers would earn during their usual working lives.
We also call on the SSC and the GCG to once again review and revise their rules and policies on “incentives,” including the PBI, by making them more just and transparent, with the end in view of further cutting down the long list of emoluments given by the various GOCCs and GFIs (government financial institutions).
Finally, Sentro and APL are urging the SSC to bare to the public all the emoluments its members enjoy.