Cmc not for sale

My sincere apology to Dr. Thelma Navarrete-Clemente, chairman of the board and medical director of Capitol Medical Center for any embarrassment or confusion that a previous article that appeared in this column about CMC being for sale may have caused.

According to her, she was so embarrassed as their stockholders, friends as far as from Dubai and the US, were all asking if the family was selling CMC. She said that they are not selling CMC and that they still continue to render excellent quality healthcare to their patients ever since the time of the hospital’s founding.

In that article dated Feb. 12, 2012, I wrote that CMC has been offered to the Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC) hospital group, (which owns Makati Medical Center, Asian Hospital, manages a number of hospitals including Cardinal Santos Memorial Medical Center and Lourdes Hospital, and has acquired stakes in Riverside Medical in Bacolod and Davao Doctors Hospital), by the children of CMC founder Dr. Thelma who owns 30 percent of the hospital. About 50 percent is owned by the doctors while the remaining 20 percent is held by individuals who inherited their shares from the founding partners.

As I said in the same article, there is no way that Dr. Thelma would sell, and that is why my MPIC sources said that the offer is “hilaw” because the children have yet to convince the matriarch.

So to put and end to this story for now, according to Dr. Thelma, CMC is not for sale. Period.

Every Filipino deserves a pension

I would like to give this space to a piece written by Ms.Alice H. Reyes. Here it goes:

His passion for social security is unparalleled.

Horacio T. Templo has spent most of his life as part of the Social Security System, where he started as an actuarial associate in 1978 until his appointment as chief actuary and executive vice-president in 2001, posts he held until his voluntary retirement in 2010.”

Today, Templo is busy doing research on social security, preparing a definitive book on social security in the Philippines and exerting efforts to make his ‘magnificent obsession’ a reality.

That obsession is ‘to expand social security for all.’

Templo can talk at length about the need for universal social security, such as may be found in Brunei. Indeed he has spoken to large groups of interested individuals about the matter, among them the Philippine Government Employees Confederation and the Philippine Government Transportation Workers Organization.  

According to him, the Philippine Constitution of 1987 declares that the family has the duty to care for its elderly members but the State may also do so through just programs of social security.

He adds that certainly there are many but fragmented laws entitling workers , soldiers and the poor to social pensions. There are the GSIS, SSS, ECC, veterans pensions, the social pension granted by the Senior Citizens Law (P500 to poor elderly Filipinos) and lately, the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program which distributes family allowance and social pensions through the DSWD which acts   as a social security agency.

The CCT, according to him, shows that it is possible for government to provide benefits without requiring contributions from the beneficiaries. Allocations for the CCT have amounted to billions of pesos.

Templo says that every Filipino deserves a pension, whether he worked briefly or at length, whether he worked overseas or remained part of the informal sector, whether he is a farmer, fisherman, a balut vendor or tricycle driver, upon reaching the age of 60.

This belief has prompted Templo to spearhead the formation of an advocacy group composed of pensioners and non-pensioners who like him, espouse social responsibility.

He says that social security is a right not just for a chosen few. Consider that poverty is a threat to prosperity and peace, and government can and should do something about it.

The concept of a universal pension scheme may sound ambitious, probably idealistic to some, according to Templo, but it is doable.

Such a scheme funded from general revenues   can be realized if the pensions schemes of various agencies are integrated, without a complete merger, tin the same way that the Medicare programs of the SSS and GSIS were integrated into what is now Philhealth.

To fund the universal pension program, Templo suggests that government tap government corporations such as PAGCOR, PCSO, DBP, to name a few, and use part of the taxes collected through the BIR and BOC, which rightfully should go back to the people that government is tasked to serve.

He admits ruefully that it may take time to realize the dream of a universal pension.His former boss, SSS administrator Renato Valencia, envisioned universal coverage to be attained by 1998, but was sorely disappointed.

“For,” Templo says,” it will certainly require the political will of our policy makers to accomplish this feat, over half a century since the creation of the SSS”

Nevertheless, Templo dares to hope that the touted winds of change may bring about the fulfillment of his magnificent obsession .

In the meantime, this pillar of the Social Security System, a Don Quixote to some but a hero to countless Filipinos who are still pension-less, relentlessly goes around the country, reiterating his message to all who can hear: “Every Filipino deserves a pension.”

For comments, e-mail at [email protected]