“Rolly must have taken to heart what Rodrigo Duterte kept saying during the 2016 campaign about loan sharks, whom he called ‘Turkos,’…who went around plying their 5-6 trade”
Except for his provincemates in Zamboanga and Tarlac and perhaps the big business community, the name of Rolando L. Macasaet does not ring a bell.
But this does not detract from the ability of this government functionary who accomplishes much wherever he is appointed to.
Rolly, as friends call him, is the first Filipino to head both GSIS, the government pension system, and the SSS, the privately funded but government-helmed pension system.
That he was appointed to the GSIS by then President Duterte, and then named to be SSS CEO by incumbent President Marcos Jr. is testament to the guy’s competence and reliability.
He also served under both President GMA and President Estrada, and rose up in the Philippine National Bank hierarchy from the time he finished his studies at the state university, with magna cum laude honors.
At the GSIS, Macasaet offered cheaper loans to members, particularly teachers who were paying enormous interest to loan sharks.
He bought out their liabilities by paying off the private lenders, and then converted these to GSIS loans with much lower interest rates.
Those private lenders had 320 billion worth of loans from our public school teachers, for whom they were gouged from 30 to 60 percent interest annually, until Macasaet converted these to GSIS loans at a meager 7 percent per annum, earning the ire of the loan sharks yet endearing him for the relief he gave our teachers.
Moreover, he released 12 billion for the teachers to be able to buy computers during the pandemic, at 30,000 pesos apiece, without conniving with any bulk supplier of computers.
GSIS old-timers told me they just released the loans, with the teachers choosing whichever brand to buy.
No Sunwest Corp. in the picture, unlike the PS-DBM maneuvered purchase for DepEd teachers which was allegedly overpriced by 1 billion pesos. How’s that for integrity and compassion?
Rolly must have taken to heart what presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte kept saying during the 2016 campaign about loan sharks, whom he called “Turkos,” the Visayan malaprop for the Tagalog-identified “Bombay” who went around plying their 5-6 trade.
At GSIS, he strung the loan sharks up their asses.
It is simple “malasakit,” or compassion.
In his first year at its helm, SSS chalked up a bottom line of 83.13 billion pesos, surpassing the target of 51.06 billion by a whopping 62.8 percent.
In 2022, net income was 52.6 billion, and in one year (Rolly became SSS President on Jan. 5, 2023, six months after PBbM took over), it grew to 83.13 billion, the highest net income posted in the whole existence of SSS.
The bulk of its record-high net income came from contribution collection which rose by 18.2 percent to 309.12 to 261.44 billion in the previous year, while total expenditures went to benefit payments to members and pensioners.
Increasing revenues but cutting down on expenditures is a cardinal rule in management, and in the SSS case, benefit payments still rose from 242.8 to 259.03 last year, while operating expenses amounted to only 30.32 percent of the allowable charter limit of 38.4 billion pesos.
Intensified collection activities, including registration of new paying members and improved collection from delinquent employers on top of the 2023 contributed rate hike, while being prudent on overhead expenses, made up for the banner revenue performance.
Macasaet has lined up other programs to increase membership, as well as benefits for SSS members, but that will be another story.
Would that government functionaries could be as over-achieving while remaining low profile, happy at the psychic income of doing a job well and properly serving one’s constituents.
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Meanwhile, inflation continues to be the economy’s continuing nightmare, with little solution in sight.
PSA announced the other day that February inflation rose by 3.4 percent, up from January’s 2.8 percent and a two-month declining trend. The cause of the uptick? Food prices, particularly rice.
With El Nino now affecting half of the country, and threatening more provinces, there is no escaping higher prices due to constricted domestic production.
This space has written about this problem since the middle of last year. Pray it does not get worse.
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Karl Marx once labelled religion as “the opium of the people.”
He theorized that religion encourages people to accept their social conditions because rewards await them in the afterlife.
Listening to “victims” of the “Appointed Son,” Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy, recount their forced tithing, offerings and other forms of exploitation as members of the sect, one cannot but agree with Marx.
How could so many be fooled to part away with hard-earned money for the promise of being in the Kingdom Nation forever and ever? Beats me.
Will the “appointed son” see his come-uppance soon from the long arms of the DOJ or the FBI?