Page 37 - Hello Philippines January 2016 'B' issue

January 2016 / Fortnightly – No. 2 • UK & Europe Edition
WAY OUT?
After veto, Speaker suggests executive action for smaller SSS pension hike
MANILA – Following the veto
of the bill that would have increased
the pension of Social Security System
members by P2,000, Speaker Feliciano
Belmonte Jr. said executive action can
still be taken to partially salvage the
situation.
“Actually, the SSS board, with
the President’s approval, can provide
for a smaller increase even without
congressional action,” Belmonte said in
a text message.
This, he said, would be the fastest
way to ensure pensioners do not end up
with nothing.
The members of the SSS board are
presidential appointees.
Belmonte’s suggestion followed that
of Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph
Recto, one of the sponsors of House
Bill 5842, vetoed measure’s sponsors,
who urged Aquino III to look into the
possibility of increasing pensions by
P1,000 or any amount he thinks can be
supported by the SSS.
In his veto message, Aquino said
enacting the bill would compromise
the estimated 31 million SSS members
“in favor of two million pensioners and
their dependents” as well as “result
in substantial negative income for the
Social Security System.”
“More specifically,” he said, “the
KAHIT MAGING PRESIDENTE PA S’YA
Gringo first to stand up to Binay if courts find VP guilty
MANILA – Rebel soldier-
turned-senator and perennial
coup plotter Gregorio “Gringo”
Honasan won’t have second
thoughts about taking a stand
against the country’s second
highest leader even if Jejomar
Binay, his running mate in
the 2016 polls, becomes the
President.
In an interview with
InterAksyon on Thursday,
January 14, Honasan, who had
helped bring down the Marcos
dictatorship, and later on
repeatedly tried to overthrow
Cory Aquino’s administration,
said he won’t take sitting down
the corruption allegations being
hurled against Binay if the courts
would find the Vice President
guilty of the crime.
“(I)f the Vice President as
a candidate or as an elected
President, is found out by the
24-hour
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proposed pension increase of P2,000
per retiree, multiplied by the present
number of more than two million
pensioners, will result in a total payout of
P56 billion annually. Compared against
annual investment income of P30
billion-P40 billion, such total payment
for pensioners will yield a deficit of P16
billion-P26 billion annually.”
Bayan Muna party-list
Representative Neri Colmenares, who
authored the original measure in 2011
with then Representative Teddy Casino,
said he would continue pushing for the
P2,000 pension increase through a veto
override.
At the same time, he pressed SSS
management to work on institutional
reforms over the next five years to
strengthen the agency’s fund life and its
capacity to provide services and fulfill
its functions.
“Pensioners contend that the main
reason for the insufficient funding of
SSS and its inability to fund a pension
increase is its extremely inefficient
collection of contributions, failure to
recover receivables by prosecuting
employerswhofailedtoremitemployees’
contributions, and the inordinate perks
and bonuses the Board gives itself in
spite of these inefficiencies,” he said.
He called the basic P1,200 monthly
InterAksyon file photos of Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen. Gregorio Honasan.
courts to be guilty or culpable, I will
be the first one to stand up and tell
him the courts have ruled,” Honasan
said during the interview at the New
Horizon Hotel in Mandaluyong City.
“Now if there are doubts about my
capacity to tell him (Binay) that, I
have stood in the gates of Malacañang
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NEWS
pension for members with at least 10
years’ worth of contribution, unchanged
since 1997, “subhuman” given how the
prices of basic necessities have increased
because of inflation.
The lawmaker said inflation had
increased 1997 prices by 231.28
percent, bringing down the actual
value of the pension to only P518.86 by
2014. Even the P2,400 pension for SSS
members with 20 years’ contribution
would be worth only P1,037.72, way
below the P5,333 minimum living wage
for a single person.
As for the SSS’ limited fund life, he
said this is true of all social security
systems around the world. Some
countries, in fact, have a fund life of
only 12 years, or up to 2027, like the
United Kingdom or Canada, where the
fund life is only up to 2022.
“For SSS to claim that shortening its
fund life to only 14 years or up to 2029
will lead to its bankruptcy is a scheme
to scare those who do not understand
the actuarial potential of a 14 year fund
life,” he said. “After all, SSS did not
find the situation worrisome enough
to initiate institutional reforms when it
officially admitted to having a five year
fund life in 2001.”
Another “scare tactic,” said
Colmenares, was SSS’ claim of an
four times, three times in my life in
full combat gear without an invitation
except the one from my conscience.
I think I can tell him that,” added
the senator, who was also accused
of having a hand in a 2006 plot to
bring down and take power from the
Arroyo administration.
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unfunded liability of P1.19 trillion.
“All government pension schemes
have unfunded liabilities, many of
which are larger than the Philippines
per capita, but none of them went
bankrupt,” he said.
In fact, he said, a 2014 study by
Richard Marin, “Surviving the Global
Pension Crisis,” said the Philippines is who do not remit collected contributions.
better off than many countries.
“The Philippines has actually a low
funding gap of US$ 22.92 Billion or
8.2% of the GDP. Ireland which has a
lower GDP has a huge funding gap of
US$ 320 Billion or 156% of its GDP,” the for SSS board members, who received
study noted.
“Unfunded liability is manageable
if only SSS institute reforms in the
next 14 years to expand its reserve and
investment fund. It requires a strong
political will on the part of both the
Senate and the House of Representatives
The 67-year-old opposition vice
presidential candidate made the
statement amid recurring questions
on his decision to become Binay’s
running mate despite the various
allegations being faced by the Vice
President including large-scale
corruption involving overpriced
buildings and money laundering.
“They ask me also why did I run
with a Vice President who is accused
of being this or that. Well, unless we
want to opt for mob rule, be judged
by front pages, or 6 o’clock news,
I think that has to be resolved in
the proper courts of law through
due process and the rule of law,”
said Honasan, vice president of the
United Nationalist Alliance.
“Until that is followed, we cannot
be judged, tried, and convicted by
publicity,” he added.
Binay is a Cory loyalist. He was
known as “Rambotito” or Little
Rambo for fiercely defending
when you spend £30 or more
www.hello-philippines.com 37
to come to the succor of senior citizens
and approve the pension increase law,”
it added.
Colmenares proposed the following
measures to ensure the viability of the
pension fund:
• Improve collection efficiency
• Improve prosecution of employers
Of the 164,111 delinquent employers in
2010, SSS only filed cases against an
average of 1,200 per year, meaning
it would take more than a century to
charge all of them, much less collect.
• Cut down on “exorbitant” bonuses
more than a million pesos each in 2012.
The SSS has also refused to take back
more than P200 million in retirement
packages given to board members in
2009. n Lira Dalangin-Fernandez / InterAksyon.com /
January 15, 2016 / 8:11 am
President Corazon Aquino from
coup attempts during the late
‘80s, clad in Army fatigues and
armed with Uzi submachine gun.
Honasan, among the icons of
the 1986 People Power uprising,
attempted to overthrow via a
series of coup d’etat from 1987 to
1989 Cory’s administration that
he helped put into power via the
EDSA revolt.
Last October, Binay said he
did not see any conflict in having
Honasan as his running mate even
if he remained loyal to the mother
of President Benigno Aquino III,
who was instrumental in his entry
in politics when Cory appointed
him acting mayor of Makati City
following the EDSA uprising.
“I want my administration to be
known as a healing and unifying
government,” Binay said. n Haidee
V. Eugenio / InterAksyon.com / January 15, 2016
/ 10:44 pm