THE party-list group Bayan Muna has asked President Duterte to consider sacking Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia and his Cabinet allies for refusing to allow the P1,000 pension increase for Social Security System (SSS) retirees.
Party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani T. Zarate of Bayan Muna and Neri Colmenares, the group’s chairman, in a statement also urged Duterte to immediately sign the P2,000 SSS pension increase, “as this only translates to P66 per day for the much-needed additional fund for our senior citizens food, maintenance medicine and other expenses”.
Pernia opposes practically all of Duterte’s policy pronouncements, including his vow to ensure rice self-sufficiency; his pledge to stop land conversions to prevent more arable land from being transformed into commercial centers, residential subdivisions and industrial parks; and his commitment to raise the monthly pension of SSS retirees, Bayan Muna argued.
He has allegedly recruited Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III and Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno in recommending that Duterte scrap the planned SSS pension increase.
Zarate and Colmenares accused the three Cabinet members of “junking and sabotaging [a] Congressional measure to give immediate relief to millions of SSS pensioners now and in the future.”
“The concession to give the pension increase in two tranches, upon strong representations by the new SSS leadership, was, in fact, allowed by Congress, so that the SSS can still raise more funds. Thus, it is utterly ridiculous for the three Cabinet secretaries to say that the agency would go bankrupt,” Zarate said.
“In fact, with the initial P1,000 increase beginning this month, that would mean just P33 per day of additional funds for the elderly pensioners,” he added.
Zarate, one of the principal authors of House Joint Resolution 10 granting the increase beginning January 2017, condemned the sabotage operations of the Pernia cabal.
“During the House and Senate hearings, SSS Chairman Amado Valdez even explicitly said the P1,000 initial pension increase can be done as early as December 2016 and the SSS would not go bankrupt. He even added that raising membership premium is also the least, even last, of the options to raise the funds of the agency. Furthermore, if at all, government subsidy for the pension fund as provided for by the SSS Charter is even higher in their options,” he added.
“It is also not unfair to future pensioners because the P2,000 pension hike bill and the subsequent Joint Resolution 10 states that, through this legislation, the base of the SSS pension would be raised so all pensioners from now on would enjoy higher pension,” he added.
Duterte said the only thing needed for the SSS pension increase to be implemented is his signature, but added that he wants to discuss the matter to be “fair” to everybody.
Pernia, Dominguez and Diokno claimed that without an accompanying SSS premium increasae, the proposed pension increase would unduly jack up the unfunded liabilities of the fund from P3.5 trillion to P5.9 trillion.
“This is the same scare tactic used by the previous SSS administration. It would be well for the three Cabinet members to stop scaring the people, especially the President, for this phantom adverse effect once the current pension is increased,” Zarate added.
Meanwhile, Colmenares said that “the Cabinet secretaries should stop trying to delude the people and Duterte that it has no funds for the P2,000 pension increase because this is not true. They are trying to sabotage the distribution of the P2,000 pension increase, even if it has actually admitted several times that it has the funds for the pension increase. At most, the increase will only shorten the SSS fund life to 2025-2029, instead of the current 2042,” he added.
“Assuming this is true, 14 years is more than enough time for the government and the SSS to find ways to increase its fund life. In 2001 the SSS declared that it has a fund life of only five years and yet it was able to increase this to 2042 in just 14 years. If it previously survived a five-year fund life, then surely it can also survive a 14-year fund life. Truthfully speaking, we are in a better shape than the United Kingdom, which has a fund life of only up to 2027, and Canada, which has a fund life of 2022 or merely seven years,” Colmenares added.