Not socialized
“Socialized” pricing means the price is adapted to the paying capacity of the buyer. Like somebody pulling over in a BMW at a highway fruit stand would be quoted a higher price than a customer coming on foot. A socially conscious and smart seller charges a higher price to rich customers so he/she can accommodate poor customers with a lower price.
So, why is our Social Security System (SSS) not socialized as befits its name? Why is the ordinary worker-retiree who has no savings and no other source of income in retirement getting a much smaller pension (hence less security) than the highly paid executive who should have saved and invested enough to support a financially secure life of retirement?
Is it because we are not a socialist country? But isn’t our health system in a way socialized when it gives free medicines to the poor? And isn’t Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) socialized assistance aid? Why not our social security system, then?
It’s a wild thought for now like Sen. Ralph Recto wondering why government spends millions of pesos to train officer-soldiers and not a centavo to train government rural doctors. But then maybe our lawmakers can start nibbling on these.
The idea occurred to me when I received the additional P1,000-peso monthly SSS pension. It really isn’t much for retired top-level executives. But it is a lot for thousands of retired ordinary workers who must survive on very meager SSS pensions because they and their employers contributed little to the system.
Now to the heart of the matter, the central issue which is a problem I presume I share with many other retirees. This is the adjustment due many retirees whose pensions have been erroneously computed because SSS omitted, maybe inadvertently, to include in the computation the contribution of some years.
Years back, I heard that SSS has been giving such an adjustment to people who somehow learned and applied for it. In 2014 when I was about to apply (after a source inside SSS confirmed that I was due for an adjustment) I was told not to bother because SSS has decided to re-compute everybody’s pension and give the adjustment without the pensioner having to apply for it.
A cousin, who inquired and got confirmed with me in 2014, received his adjustment late last year. That signified that SSS has finished the re-computation of affected pensions. But how come I’m still wondering where’s mine. How many retirees to whom, unlike me, such adjustments mean so desperately much are in the same predicament.
SSS will probably take light years to be socialized and that’s perfectly understandable under prevailing circumstances. In the meantime though, couldn’t it perhaps be more forthcoming with the adjustments? .