SSS political appointees raiding our provident fund

More questions for the police brass to answer in self-examination, before they go blaming the media, as usual, for their bungling of Monday’s hostage rescue:

(1) How come reporters got to the crime scene ahead of the cops, when there’s a police station only 150 meters away, at the corner of the road fronting Quirino Grandstand? Late police response led to their failure to cordon off the newsmen and onlookers.

(2) Why did the cops set up a cordon so close to the bus holding the hostages, thus endangering onlookers? Did they want to be caught on news cameras performing heroics that flopped?

(3) How was the hostage taker’s traffic policeman-brother able to breach the cordon and approach the bus carrying a sidearm? It was police carelessness, the same way they let amok Sr. Insp. Rolando Mendoza lug an assault rifle all over touristy Intramuros before hostaging 21 Chinese.

(4) Who was Mendoza talking to on the mobile just before he started shooting the hostages? The Manila police chief said the party on the other end, not the press, apparently had agitated the officer into firing away.

(5) Why did the brass not retrieve from Mendoza the official-issue M-16, after he was dismissed from the service in January for extortion? How many more official firearms remain in the possession of discharged cops?

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A Senate hearing Tuesday revealed how political appointees have been helping themselves to our SSS (Social Security System) money. Four SSS trustees took home P127.4 million from directorships in one company alone in the past three years.

Immediate past SSS chairman Thelmo Cunanan got P83.1 million, president Romy Neri P17.2 million, predecessor Cora dela Paz P20.7 million, and trustee Sergio Ortiz Luis P6.4 million from board seats in Philex Mines. The money represented per diems, bonuses and stock options as directors of Philex, in which our SSS has invested P14.3 billion of our provident fund.

We private hires and self-employed contribute monthly to the SSS, which our employers match, as layaways. From the fund we can borrow for housing and emergencies, and draw stipends for disability, retirement, and burial. Public servants have their counterpart GSIS (Government Service Insurance System). The President appoints the SSS and GSIS trustees, who do not need confirmation by the Congress Commission on Appointments. Still, the SSS and GSIS remain our members’ money, merely administered for us by the appointee-trustees.

SSS and GSIS trustees are tasked to make our money grow through sound investments. Among SSS’ investments are stocks in publicly listed corporations, like Philex, presently the most profitable miner. The SSS has shares in other giant concerns, like Security Bank, Union Bank, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., and Energy Development Corp. In these firms, the SSS chairman, president and other trustees sit as directors, supposedly representing our interest as members.

The SSS trustees already draw stupendous per diems and bonuses from our fund. Whatever they are given as directors in private firms should be turned over to the SSS. Such “compensation” is not theirs to take home; along with stock dividends, it is the earnings of stock investments. In short, it is our money.

But Cunanan, Neri, dela Paz, and Ortiz Luis did not turn over the P127.4 million that Philex gave them as directors in 2007 to 2009. Neri admitted to have pocketed his share as part of supposed legitimate income as SSS president.

Neri must be imagining things. There are guidelines for SSS officials sitting as directors in private firms. They must remit their “compensation” because these are deemed to be investment earnings. It is so stated in our revised SSS charter of 1997. Before that, bankers-turned-SSS presidents Joey Cuisia and Renato Valencia had dutifully remitted their directors’ pay to our SSS treasury. SSS managers say that things changed in 1998 when Carlos Arellano became SSS chief under President Joseph Estrada. With him began the practice of treating directors’ pay as personal income. The practice continued under Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who took power in 2001 by toppling Estrada for “abuses and plunder”. Arroyo’s SSS point men turned out to be no better than Estrada’s.

The P127.4 million that Cunanan, Neri, dela Paz, and Ortiz Luis took home were mostly stock options. These consist of shares awarded to Philex directors, including the SSS trustees, at lower than market rates.

Of Cunanan’s P83.1 million from Philex, P55.3 million was in stock options. He sold 3.14 million of our SSS shares that only happened to be in his name as Philex director, for P19.50 a share, on Nov. 12, 2009. Originally he got P66.6 million of the SSS shares in Philex for only P1.90 apiece.

Neri defended Cunanan, saying the latter was “just lucky” to have sold the shares when he did. But the point is that the SSS members, not them, own the shares, Sen. Frank Drilon reminded reporters after the hearing of his finance committee.

Neri himself made P11.8 million in stock options from May 28, 2009 to March 5, 2010; dela Paz P9.7 million in August 2008, and Ortiz Luis P4.6 million on January 4, 2010.

Drilon said the four are criminally liable for violating the Revised Penal Code’s provision against dishonest trustees. Trustees are supposed to exercise “extraordinary diligence” in caring for trust funds entrusted to them. Pocketing trust funds’ investment earnings can only be considered “extraordinary dereliction” of duty.

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Sigma Kappa Pi celebrates its 42nd anniversary on Wednesday, Sept. 1, with a 7 p.m. get-together at the Recom Gazebo, Caloocan City Hall. Founders Doty Abaya, Mindo David, and Jack Gan welcome all alumni and chapter members. RSVP: Brods Magno Salva, (02) 5566924; OJ Juanir, (0928) 7167777; Jay Soto, (0917) 8444464.

“It can sometimes happen that those who deviate from truth can see it clearer.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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