ADMINISTRATION standard bearer Manuel Roxas II said Monday he opposed raising Social Security System pensions for retirees by P2,000 and said President Aquino III was right in vetoing the bill that proposed it.
“All of our decisions and actions will have an effect,” Roxas said. “What is important here is the reason, and I would agree and support that it isn’t correct, unjust, and certainly not a part of Daang Matuwid that for political points, because we have elections, that we will destroy the future of more than 31 million who contribute to the SSS.”
“According to experts, the SSS would be in a brink of bankruptcy if we will do this. We’re good for one, two, three years, but the pension funds of those who contribute will be destroyed. So, what’s right there? Will we do this just for political points only? I will not agree on this,” Roxas said, echoing the President.
Aquino vetoed the bill that would have raised pensions for some 2.1-million retirees by P2,000 across the board, saying he was looking out for the 31-million SSS members.
In doing so, he argued that the bill would seriously damage the stability of the SSS.
“The government would be irresponsible if it allowed the depletion of the funds,” Press Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said in a statement, quoting Aquino.
Despite the flak the decision has drawn, Roxas said approving the bill would lead them astray from the policy of Daang Matuwid or the straight path because it would harm the sustainability of the fund.
“Daang Matuwid is making decisions on things that would do better in the long run and in the broader sense for the betterment of our countrymen and the whole country,” he said.
Roxas added, however, that this did not mean that the government should not help SSS pensioners.
Like Aquino, he proposed alternatives to the P2,000 increase in pensions, including offering them “one-time relief” and enrolling them in the government’s health insurance program.
“What I am saying is that, the assistance that the government can give should be backed by a strong financial foundation for the SSS,” Roxas said.
Roxas said that he isn’t afraid for a backlash as a result of the President’s veto.
“You know if you have done the right thing, you have nothing to worry about. I’ve done what is right, PNoy [Aquino] did what is right, what should he worry about? In leadership not all decisions would be popular. But there are right and wrong decisions. We will go to the right thing, and that is Daang Matuwid,” he said.
House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Monday blasted the leadership of the SSS for not exerting enough effort to push through a companion bill that would enable them to raise membership premiums to fund the pension benefits.
“The SSS was too timid,” Belmonte said. “They should have been more aggressive.”
Belmonte said the SSS also failed to send representatives to Congress when lawmakers were debating the measure.
“If I were in the SSS, I’d have done my best to be here during congressional deliberations, not just sending a legal officer,” said Belmonte, who used to head the Government Service Insurance System.
Former Iloilo Rep. Augusto Syjuco Jr. urged the Office of the Ombudsman to hold SSS officials responsible for allowing the agency to go bankrupt.
As a taxpayer for and in behalf of the 2.15-million SSS pensioners, Syjuco asked the Ombudsman to investigate the case.
“With the veto by the President, it now comes to our attention that SSS is not capable to implement the pension increase because of its precarious financial condition,” his complaint read
Also on Monday, senatorial candidate Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez urged House leaders to rally behind a proposal that would provide an alternative to the vetoed pension increase.
Romualdez said Congress should work for the passage of another bill in the remaining session days of the 16th Congress as a show of malasakit or compassion to senior citizen-members of state-run pension agency.
“Congress should not ignore the strong clamor to increase the pensions of SSS members. We can push for the approval of another bill that would be acceptable to all stakeholders,” said Romualdez, who heads the independent minority bloc in the House.
The leftist bloc in the House, meanwhile, condemned Aquino for his refusal to allocate funds to increase SSS pensions and called on lawmakers to override his veto.
House leaders have already rejected an override, however, saying it was “next to impossible.”
“The main reason President Aquino vetoed the bill is now clear—he just does not want to allocate funds for SSS. The SSS fund life argument has been raised many times during the hearings and we have studied their arguments including their report that they will have a deficit of P4 billion if the pension is increased by P2,000,” said Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares, the principal author of the SSS pension hike bill.
“We have maintained in these hearings that the SSS should increase collection and eliminate unnecessary expenses but if these are still insufficient to cover this, then government should allocate funds to cover the deficit,” Colmenares added.
1-BAP party-list Rep. Silvestre Bello III also criticized the President’s veto and said Congress had the power to reverse his decision.
“If Congress honestly wants to override the veto of the President, [it can do so by all means]. Time is no problem,” Bello said.
SSS president and chief executive Emilio de Quiros Jr. said Monday the SSS would agree to raise monthly pensions if contributions are raised from the present 11 percent to as much as 15.8 percent.
In a news briefing, De Quiros said the life of the fund would be depleted in 11 years if the monthly increase in pension were granted without an equivalent adjustment in premiums.
De Quiros said in comparison, the GSIS, the pension fund for government employees, imposes a contribution rate of 21 percent. He added that other countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore require members to contribute at least 20 percent of their base income to the pension fund. With Maricel V. Cruz, Roderick T. dela Cruz and Rio N. Araja