Retiree asks Ombuds to probe SSS officials

CEBU, Philippines - A retired employee of the Visayan Electric Company has asked the Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas to investigate the officials of the Social Security System in Cebu for allegedly deleting five years of his contributions that affected his retirement benefits.

Engr. Luis R. Ponce Jr., 71, was prompted to seek the help of the anti-graft body after the SSS officials refused to act on his complaint allegedly because it was filed beyond the 10-year prescriptive period.

Ponce claimed that he contributed monthly premiums to the SSS since his membership in 1960 until his retirement in 1999.

In his letter request for assistance, Ponce claimed that he was surprised to know in September 2010 from his former fellow VECO workers that their SSS contributions from 1990 to 1995 were deleted from the SSS records.

Ponce said he immediately complain about it after learning the situation.

Ponce said he requested SSS-Cebu City manager Mario V. Corro to make the necessary adjustment of his present monthly pension and pay for the corresponding differentials.

However, his request was denied by Corro for the reason that it was made beyond the SSS internal policy of a 10-year prescription rule on claims and re-computation and re-adjustment.

“I couldn’t understand why the 10-year prescription rule should be applied to me when I only learned about their blunder barely four months ago!,” Ponce told Assistant Ombudsman Virginia Palanca-Santiago.

Ponce said that the records in VECO show that they were paying regularly from 1990 to 1995.

“They kept me in the dark for a decade and such non-disclosure would have continued had we not discovered their mistakes. So where and how do they based their prescriptive period?” Ponce asked.

According to Ponce, since it was a mistake of the SSS personnel and not him, the SSS should be the one to correct it to protect the rights of their members.

Ponce said some SSS personnel claimed that the contributions of some VECO employees had been deleted from the SSS records because of the so-called “computer glitch” that the complainant described it as a serious blunder.

“We had absolutely nothing to do with how you run your systems and operations. We had no participation whatsoever in choosing your multi-million pesos worth of computer systems that frequently bogs down and fails miserably,” Ponce told the SSS-Cebu manager.

Ponce argued that the legal principle of prescription does not apply to him in this case because he was not aware of it nor had he been notified of the fact of the SSS failure to record his five years monthly contributions.

He strongly believe that aside from him, there are several other SSS members and pensioners who also shared the same problem.

“I couldn’t help imagine how many more retirees out there are in the same boat with me but still remain blissfully unaware of their predicament because of your deliberate non-disclosure of information until the time comes you can safely foist your 10-year prescription rule in order to avoid liability,” Ponce told Corro. — (FREEMAN)