BAGUIO CITY — While lauding President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval of a P1,000 Social Security System (SSS) pension hike, a labor group urged the agency to also cut down bonuses of its high-ranking officials.
The Associated Labor Unions (ALU) said that the SSS management must institute reforms within its system by trimming down excessive bonuses of its top executives and introduce reasonable perks instead.
The group also called for improvement in the agency's collection of member contributions.
“(SSS) should also improve its collection efficiency by pinning down non-remitting employers, stop corruption within and act on 7,000 delinquent employers now pending in the courts,” ALU spokesperson Alan Tanjusay said.
The labor group said the government should have fixed the system first and instituted reforms within the SSS before requiring new contributions from 14 million paying members out of the 34 million registered members.
It said that a significant improvement in the life fund of the SSS would come if reforms are enforced.
“We suggest that President [Rodrigo] Duterte to direct the SSS to open their books and consult with workers since it's workers money that the SSS is doing placements on,” Tanjusay said.
Meanwhile, the group also thanked Duterte for fulfilling his campaign promising of increasing the pension. — Artemio Dumlao