Inequitable treatment of private sector retirees

There is a wide disparity in the pension between government and private sector employees—much to the dismay of the latter when they retire.

The retirement pension of the private sector employees ranges from P1,000 to P16,000 monthly, with most of them getting only around P6,000 on the average. On the other hand, the public sector employees get around five times more than their private counterparts. Thus the latter are often hard put in their retirement years, and most have to work to be able to survive even in their twilight years.

The reason for this is that the private sector employee retires under the Social Security System (SSS), while that of the public sector is under the Government Service Insurance Service (GSIS). And the retirement package of the GSIS is very much more generous than that of the SSS.

But if you think about it more closely, there is no really valid and logical reason why private sector retirees should be treated inequitably vis-à-vis those in the public sector. For one, we have only one government, and this is supported mostly by the taxes everyone pays. Secondly, our workforce consists of around 35 million employees, of which 1.5 million or less than 5 percent come from the public sector. It is therefore the private sector that mainly props up this government. Thirdly, the retirement benefits of the GSIS retiree is paid in greater part by the government, meaning from the taxes of the people. So the bottom line is that more than 95 percent of this expense is paid by the private sector in the form of taxes of all sorts. So why are private sector retirees getting the short end of the retirement stick?

In addition, private sector retirement has no government contribution, but is wholly paid by the employee and his/her employer. It seems his short end of the retirement stick therefore is even shorter!

I appeal to our lawmakers to end this inequity. As President Aquino said, we, the people, are the “boss.” Bosses deserve some dignity, especially in their twilight years. Give that to us.

—SAMUEL J. YAP, [email protected]