SSS officials mocking genuine public service

Members of Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa  and the Alliance of Progressive Labor reiterate their call for the SSS (Social Security System) commissioners to return their “scandalous” bonuses to the pension fund’s coffers.

Members of the Social Security Commission, the SSS governing board, should make public all their emoluments, and the Governing Commission for GOCCs should revise its rules on bonuses by making them more judicious and transparent.

Although “legal,” the fat bonuses of the SSS commissioners are downright outrageous and immoral considering the pitiful income of most private-sector workers—SSS members—and the mandatory hike in SSS contributions starting in January, not to mention the planned additional premiums every two years.

While the SSS earned billions of pesos in net income—obviously the basis for the SSS officials’ and employees’ bonuses—SSS management also acknowledged that SSS has a massive P1.1-trillion “unfunded liabilities” or future financial obligations not yet covered by available funds, thus the supposed need for a series of increases in payments of SSS members. The excuse given by SSS officials to justify the bonuses—that these were taken not from the SSS members’ contributions but from the SSS income—is ridiculous.

As has been pointed out, the SSS management should stop skirting the issue; the “income” it is boasting of was earned using the payments of the SSS members who religiously pay their contributions despite their meager benefits and pensions. Its argument—that it needs to give “competitive” incentives to the SSS commissioners to make their compensation at par with the income level of private-sector executives—makes a mockery of the avowed “public service” expected of officials of state-run institutions like the SSS. It also skirts the central issue of excessive bonuses given SSS officials.

 —FRANK MERO, chair, JOSUA MATA, secretary general, Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa