Compassion not Aquino’s strength

ON DISTANT SHORE

Val G. Abelgas

President Aquino was just being consistent when he vetoed House Bill No. 5842 that would provide a P2,000 across-the-board increase in the monthly pension of Social Security System (SSS) pensioners. After all, it was not the first time this scion of hacenderos has rejected relief for the millions of poor families in the country.

In 2013, Aquino, who never had to worry about where to get the money to put food on the table, to pay bills, or to buy much-needed medicine much less how to survive in old age, rejected the proposed Magna Carta for the Poor that would give the poor equal access to basic rights and government services. Aquino rejected it on the ground that some of the provisions of the bill were unrealistic, specifically the provision that seeks to provide shelter to the poor that, he said, would need P2.31 trillion to implement.

               Aquino also rejected a proposal from Sen. Sonny Angara that would provide income tax cuts for 15 million wage earners.

An income tax cut, according to retired SSS executive vice president and chief actuarian Horacio Templo, would immediately result in a higher net pay for the wage earner. This, he said, would allow the worker to level up his SSS contribution to that of his employer from 3.63 to 7.37 percent of pay and contribute based on his entire salary and beyond the present maximum cap of P16,000. These additional contributions would shore up the Social Security Fund and enable SSS to increase its monthly pensions by P2,000, Templo added.

But Aquino would have none of it. “Will lowering income taxes do good to our countrymen? I am not convinced at the present,” Aquino said. “If we lower income tax rates, revenues will be smaller while the deficit will be wider. The widening deficit will be a negative factor when credit rating agencies rate us.”

Aquino was willing to cut income tax rates if the value-added tax (VAT) would be increased, ignoring the fact that a new round of VAT hikes would trigger higher price increases that would certainly break the backs of the already suffering masses.

And now, despite the public clamor for an increase in the meager monthly pensions being received by some 2 million pensioners, Aquino flatly rejected it with a veto last week. In his veto message, Aquino said if the pension increase were granted, the SSS Investment Reserve Fund (IRF) would have to be tapped and that would bring the IRF to zero balance by 2029, therefore, he said, endangering the stability of the SSS and the pensions of future retirees.

Shrewdly using the divide-and-rule tactic, Aquino sought to pair the 2 million present pensioners against the some 31 million still working and paying monthly contributions by saying that to be able to pay the P2,000 increase, the monthly premiums of those still working would have to be raised or the SSS funds would be so depleted by 2029, they might not get any pension at all.

Aquino and the SSS officials conveniently forgot to mention that in January 2013, the SSS increased the members’ monthly premiums by 0.6 percent (from 10.4 percent to 11 percent) of their monthly pay. How come it was so easy for them to increase the contributions of 31 million members and too difficult to grant even a meager pension increase to 2 million pensioners? What are they doing with the money collected from the increased premiums?

And why was it so easy for senior SSS officials to grant themselves millions in bonuses and so easy for Aquino to defend the annual yearend perks? Do they even have a small sense of delicadeza?

           The SSS officials have been complaining that there may not be enough funds to ensure the payment of the members’ pension in the future unless it increases the members’ contribution.

And yet, Salvosa and SSS president Emilio de Quiros said its board members are being paid hefty bonuses every year because the agency meets 90% of its target income every year. If it regularly meets 90% of its annual target income, I see no reason why the SSS funds would not be enough to pay members’ pensions “for eternity,” as De Quiros likes to describe it, and pay the proposed P2,000 increases.

But no, instead of acceding to the repeated pleas of members to increase their pensions, the SSS board insensitively announced in 2013 that members’ contributions would be increased starting in January that year from 10.4 percent of the member’s salary to a whopping 11 percent. To those board members, the 0.6-percent difference is nothing but to millions of hard-pressed members, that amount would mean less food on the table.

It is the SSS board and officer’s duty to invest the members’ money wisely. With billions of pesos in members’ contribution coming in annually, there is no reason the pension fund would be depleted if the SSS board and officers make the right decisions on investments and spending.

If they were so good performance-wise to earn the hefty bonuses, how come they don’t have enough to pay the proposed increases and how come members have been complaining of very slow processing of death, disability and retirement benefits. Despite its touted computerization, the processing and payment remain “snail-paced,” as the Commission on Audit described it.

The COA rejected the SSS justification of excellent performance for granting its board members hefty bonuses. In its 2012 annual report of the state-run firm, the COA noted serious performance issues against the SSS, including the “snail-paced payment of death, disability and retirement benefits.”

            The SSS should follow the COA admonition that the SSS management should swiftly take legal steps in collecting over P367 million in premiums and penalties from 139 delinquent corporations and employers that have been remiss in their responsibility under the SSS law. In 2011, the COA also expressed dissatisfaction over SSS performance when it assailed its officials for imposing on borrowers interest on loans that exceeded P788.8 million. Imagine an agency that should promote the welfare of its members charging huge interest on salary and emergency loans, among others? That’s frying the members with their own lard, so to speak.

           The last time the SSS granted an increase in monthly pensions was in 2007, and not a single adjustment to inflation has been made since Aquino’s appointees in the SSS board, led by president Emilio de Quiroz Jr. and chairman Johnny Santos, took over in 2010. And on Monday, De Quiroz made it clear there would be no pension increases for the remaining five months of Aquino’s term. And he seemed proud of his announcement. What gall!

Not a single pension increase during their six-year watch at SSS, but P10 million worth of bonuses every single year for six years for the Aquino appointees in the board. Talk of the people being their “bosses.”

What can P1,200 a month or even P2,400, which are way below the poverty line, in pensions do to help an aging retiree survive, much less live life comfortably? With the continually rising increases in the prices of goods and services, that amount would probably last for a few days, not even counting the amount he has to spend for medicine, which at that age, becomes a daily necessity.

In criticizing the presidential veto, retired Lingayen Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz said, “The President has no mercy, insensitive and unmerciful to the people who have less in life.”

          Mania Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, on the other hand, said in vetoing the SSS pension hike bill, the President showed that his program of inclusive growth is a mere rhetoric.

In his almost six years as president, we have known that Aquino has a few admirable qualities, and compassion for the poor is not among them.

(valabelgas@aol.com)