Proposed hike in SSS contributions opposed

Militant labor leader Renato Magtubo opposed yesterday suggestions to raise the contributions of members of the Social Security System (SSS) to keep it afloat, saying the government should instead subsidize the troubled system by re-channeling debt servicing and pork barrel funds to it.

"Government has the capacity to subsidize the members’ contributions," he said, arguing that the government spends an estimated P1 billion a day on foreign debt servicing and the legislators pork barrel funds.

SSS president Corazon De la Paz was earlier quoted in a report as saying that the system may run out of funds to pay for its members’ claims by 2012, or three years earlier than a 1999 actuarial study had projected. Paz had said the pension fund should be allowed as soon as possible to either raise its members’ contributions or reduce its members’ benefits so as to make up for the fund shortfall.

The SSS fund is now down to P 165 billion from P 181 billion last year, owing to huge losses in real estate investments and loans. This spelled bad omen for the state pension fund, which, in 1990, was estimated to last in perpetuity. In 1995, a new estimate placed its actuarial life up to the year. The SSS has also issued new guidelines on members’ loans with a new requirement for a co-maker or guarantor before a loan is granted. SSS officials said they had to do this because the pension fund has also been spending more on loans than what its charter allows.

Magtubo, who heads the Partido ng Manggagawa, said, even a one-percent yearly increase in employers‚ contributions could be P18.71 billion — an amount equivalent to what the government spends for debt servicing during a three-week period.

" Why must workers bear the brunt of keeping the SSS fundsafloat, when it was bled dry not by its beneficiaries but by its previous administrators?" he said. "The SSS funds were mismanaged when it was gambled in the stock markets. It is wholly justified if employers’ contributions are increased and government subsidizes employees’ premium payments."