SSS explains increased benefits from upgrade

Please allow us to clarify some issues raised about the Social Security System (SSS) in Bernardo Peralta’s letter (“Where’s the promised SSS pension increase?” Opinion, 7/1/14).

Peralta mentioned that there had been no benefit increase in his pensions for January to May 2014. The 7-percent increase in benefits he quoted only applies to benefits due to members who are paying contributions at the higher maximum monthly salary credit (MSC) of P16,000, which took effect in January 2014, from the previous MSC ceiling of P15,000. The MSC is the major basis for the amount of monthly contributions, long-term and short-term benefits and even salary loans.

There were indeed 21 SSS pension increases from 1980 to 2007; 1987, 1991 and 1993 were the three years with two pension increases in the same year. These same-year increases deserve to be counted separately. Thus, if a pensioner was getting P4,000 in a double-pension year such as 1987, his pension would be P5,760 after the double adjustment.

To further illustrate the increased benefit effects of the recent MSC upgrade, the basic SSS pension for the minimum 10 years of service with an average MSC of P16,000 amounts to P6,400 per month, higher than the computed P6,000 per month under the P15,000 average MSC. To cite another example, the total amount of maternity benefit when based on the P16,000 MSC is P32,000 for normal delivery and P41,600 for caesarean section, as compared with P30,000 and P39,000, respectively, under the P15,000 MSC.

Although pensioners no longer pay contributions, they can still have an increase in benefits. For example, all pensioners  as of May 31, 2014 (including Peralta), are covered by the new 5-percent across-the-board pension increase effective June this year. The higher SSS pensions will be disbursed in August 2014, upon completion of our system adjustments.

Moreover, the SSS also announced the 10-percent increase for SSS pensioners with work-related contingencies covered by the Employees Compensation (EC) Program, effective Sept. 1, 2013. Our active EC pensioners as of Aug. 31, 2013, are entitled to the increase in EC pension on top of their higher SSS benefits.

—MARISSU G. BUGANTE,

vice president, public affairs

and special events division,

Social Security System