This is in reply to Elmer Sta. Ana’s letter regarding retirement benefits (“Is SSS holding on to its best-kept secrets?” Opinion, 12/9/14).
According to Sta. Ana, there are retirees who were able to get additional retirement benefits not originally paid by the Social Security System. According to some retirees, these unpaid amounts covered the years 1984 through 1989, during which period the SSS transitioned to a new computer system.
As Sta. Ana said, we are indeed verifying the contributions remitted by employers from 1984 to 1989 and re-encoding these in the new system. The SSS has undertaken a special project for the re-encoding of member contributions for the years 1984 to 1989.
We are happy to inform Sta. Ana and other SSS pensioners that once this project is completed, their missing contributions will be automatically posted and their monthly pension will be adjusted accordingly. Any differential due them will be paid through their ATM cards. This means that once the project is done, there will be no need to request for manual verification.
Sta. Ana also mentioned in his letter that “beneficiaries are advised to resurrect old SSS receipts covered by the 5-year period prior to adjudication of retirement pension.”
We would like to clarify that the procedure in requesting for a manual verification of contributions consists of filling out an application form and submitting this to any SSS branch office. No other documents are required to be submitted together with the form.
Based on the data in the application, the SSS manually verifies a member’s contributions, using source documents which are either in the archive or captured in microfilm. At times, manual verification entails retrieval of documents submitted by the employer on the payment of contributions of its employees from the SSS’ central records. These documents are scanned/read to verify the name and amount of contribution paid for the member, so it takes time to complete the verification process.
But as soon as the verification process is completed, the SSS will immediately implement pension adjustments and pay the corresponding pension differential to the requesting member.
We hope we were able to clarify this matter.
—MARISSU G. BUGANTE,
vice president,
Public Affairs and Special Events Division,
Social Security System