IT is emblematic that one of the last acts of this administration was President Aquino’s veto of a bill—already approved by both chambers of Congress—to raise Social Security System pensions by P2,000. The act perfectly illustrated the callousness and inequity that have been the hallmarks of Mr. Aquino’s six years in office.
To justify his veto to some 2 million pensioners, Mr. Aquino fell back on the arguments from the coterie of political appointees on the SSS board, who think nothing of voting at least P1 million in bonuses for each of them but insist that granting the P2,000 increase in pensions would bankrupt the system by 2027. These parasites are led by the brother of a rabidly pro-Aquino columnist—an example if there ever were one of patronage politics at work.
SSS president and chief executive Emilio de Quiros Jr. insists that the P10 million that he and the other seven board members received and the P276 million paid out to SSS employees as bonuses were all in accordance to a “performance-based” system approved by the government.
Yet the Commission on Audit has called this “performance” into question, noting that the agency has P325 billion in uncollected revenues—an amount that clearly would have paid for the pension hike.
The audit agency also found that the SSS was sitting on idle assets worth almost P18 billion in 2014, which could have earned it P198 million more.
By its own reckoning, the SSS collects only 38 percent of the money set aside by private companies for the SSS contributions of their employees.
In a private company where merit is the yardstick for an employee’s position and income, anyone with a 38-percent collection rate would be fired on the spot.
Despite their dismal showing, however, SSS officials are among the highest paid government employees in the country.
In 2014, De Quiros earned P6.84 million from the SSS, which included a P2.25-million bonus.
In 2013, he received a total of P7.1 million, which included a P1.9-million bonus and P3.4 million in allowances. The SSS also paid millions to two executive vice presidents, seven senior vice presidents, 16 vice presidents and eight members of the board of directors.
None of these executives can begin to imagine what it is like to live on a monthly pension of P1,200.
The injustice in all this is that the SSS pensioner who has worked a lifetime has probably never seen P1 million—yet has worked more diligently and honestly than the SSS executives and board directors who collect fat salaries and think nothing of voting obscene bonuses for themselves.
One of the best features of a democracy is that every so often—in our case, six years—we get to right the obvious wrongs that have been inflicted upon us by voting out non-performers and electing leaders who can do a better job.
This administration has had its run and has proved unworthy of our trust. Will we renew an odious and inequitable contract now that it has run its course? Should we keep in place leaders who are so insensitive to the injustices they inflict? Clearly, the only way to go is to cut, and to cut cleanly when we go to the polls in May.