SSS or SOS?

The Social Security System cannot simply say it will go bankrupt in a few short years had the bill granting a P2,000 per month across-the-board pension for retirees not been vetoed by Noynoy Aquino. To say so implies it has not been doing its job. It may even be understood as a violation of its mandate, which is to secure the lives of its members past their productive years.

The SSS is not simply mandated to provide pensions. If that were so, why, even a hundred pesos per month can technically be called a pension and there would have been no argument about amounts. But the mandate of the SSS goes beyond just providing any amount each month to retirees in the private sector. The SSS is mandated to provide a decent and humane life after retirement.

That is what social amelioration is all about. Unless the English language has found a different meaning of amelioration, all people who have come across the word continue to believe that its meaning is to make better and bearable. Social amelioration is the essence and soul of the SSS. But if we are to believe the stories about SSS officials, it is their own social amelioration they are taking care of, at the expense of SSS members.

While the president and CEO of SSS, whose name sounds very much like that of a rabid pro-Noynoy columnist, is paid millions of pesos in salaries, plus millions of pesos more as member of the board, the lowly retiree only receives a little over a thousand pesos a month. And that is after a lifetime of contributing to the fund. Our SSS president, on the other hand, gets his millions the moment he gets appointed by any friendly Malacañang occupant.

Now, getting paid in the millions would not have hurt so much if the job is getting done and the SSS is managed well. Far bigger amounts are paid to top notch chief executives who have taken their companies to the highest of heights in corporate success and that surprises no one. But the SSS is sinking to the lowest of lows, as it itself admits when it says it has no money to pay even the slightest adjustments in pensions, otherwise it will go bankrupt.

A company that goes bankrupt, or feels that it will, cannot be in the pink of health. It must be struggling to live. And if it is struggling to live, then it must be mismanaged and the people who run it certainly do not deserve running it, least of all get paid in the millions that they do not deserve. They should all be fired for bungling their jobs and for betraying their mandate.

Running the SSS has to be easy, otherwise it would not be left in the care of people whose main qualification is friendship with whoever sits in Mala-cañang at the moment. Besides, unlike other companies that need to produce and sell in order to earn, the SSS is assured of its revenue source. It has a captive source of funds. All it has to do is manage those funds well.

And even in the event of mismanagement, its mandate of providing for the social amelioration of its members is so important and vital that the state itself is bound by its own mandate to come to its rescue in case it is ready to keel over. In other words, if only the SSS has executives and managers with even just the normal sense of dedication and efficiency, there would be plenty of money and goodwill to spread around.

Unfortunately, the SSS is so badly run that it cannot even keep up with its collections. Again, the SSS is not like other companies that need to develop new products and then struggle to inspire interest in them before even seeing the first few pesos in revenue trickle in. The SSS has a captive market, bound by no less than the law of the land to chip in to the fund.

The SSS does not have to be creative to develop a product. It does not have to be imaginative to promote a product. It does not have to be aggressive to make a sale. All it has to do is collect contributions that are already required by law to be contributed. And yet, given such a spoon-fed kind of job, the SSS still cannot get the job done? It is time for Noynoy to kick some ass. Ooops. Sorry. I forgot. The problem goes all the way back to Noynoy pala.