I am happy that the Marcos supermajority has decided to withdraw (for the meantime) the unauthorized diversion of SSS and GSIS trust funds from highly-risky investments. But this is only to calm the perfect storm. Soon, they are poised to attack again.
The proposed Maharlika Wealth Fund brings into focus two humongous government institutions, the SSS and the GSIS. They are about to invest billions in Maharlika (I’m very wary of that name) contrary to their primary purpose. These government-owned and controlled corporations have too many highly-paid administrators, including dozens of vice presidents and directors. Yet, both the SSS and the GSIS are notorious for denying left and right claims filed by workers and their beneficiaries, for work-related deaths, disability, and sickness. Their reason: To save the trust funds from undue depletion. Wow.
The SSS and the GSIS, by their respective charters, were created to provide social protection to employees (SSS for private sector workers GSIS for government personnel). They are now poised to invest billions owned by their members, in the administration-concocted Maharlika Wealth Fund, and risk the trust funds in uncertain investment ventures, without the consent of the people who own the funds. And yet, the records show they deny almost 90% of workers' claims for sickness, disability and death benefits. They demand too much evidence from claimants who own this money and yet they are too quick to divert these funds for ventures alien to their primary functions. They should be stopped from such betrayal of their members' trust.
I am a Law professor and I teach social legislations including SSS and GSIS laws. My students are required to report on cases and 90% of the cases reported by them are claims denied by the SSS and the GSIS. In SSS vs. Vileta Simacas, GR 217866, June 20, 2022, the Supreme Court reversed the SSS and its surrogate denial king, the ECC, for applying very stringent rules and peremptorily denying claims. This is money owned by the workers entrusted to the SSS and when the contingencies of death, disability, or disease take place, the SSS and the ECC keep on denying claims. Now they are going to divert the money owned by the workers to Maharlika upon the behest of the party in power. They have no right to do it. They do not own that money.
The GSIS was rebuffed by the Supreme Court many times for unjustly denying claims for disability benefits under the disguise of being vigilant in safeguarding the fund. What hypocrisy, what sense of self-righteousness at the expense of poor government employees. In GSIS vs. CA and Efrenia Celoso, GR 116015, July 31, 1996, the Supreme Court reprimanded the GSIS for denying the claim of a poor public school teacher with 34 years of service and was compelled to retire at age 62 because of work-related illness. It scolded the GSIS for its denial supposedly because the money would be imperiled by reason of pity.
The Supreme Court said what the GSIS did was a miscarriage of justice. It told the GSIS in the case of Celoso that denying the claim for total disability benefits filed by a teacher who worked from 1951 to 1985 was contrary to the spirit of the Labor Code and violated the social justice principles enshrined in the Philippine Constitution. It told the SSS in the case of Simacas that they are administering a social legislation and they should instill in their minds that the primordial purpose of the law is to protect the working class against the hazards of disability, sickness, and death. All doubts should be resolved in favor of labor.
SSS and the GSIS should remember their mission. It is to release the funds entrusted to them to claimants who own this money and not to invest in extraneous and risky ventures outside the primary purpose of the trust funds. If they want to save money, the GSIS and the SSS should reduce the numbers of their vice presidents and directors who are paid outrageously high salaries and benefits. They shouldn’t be too stingy and unreasonable in denying peremptorily lawful and just claims.
GSIS and SSS executives don’t own these funds, the workers and the employers do. They should listen to the admonition of the Supreme Court and go back to their reasons for being. If they insist on diverting these funds, they should be sued in court and be held liable for their incompetence and abuse.