SSS: Only 12M are active paying members

CEBU, Philippines - Of the 33.6 million members of the Social Security System nationwide, only 12 million are active paying members, of which 1.9 million are in Cebu.

 SSS President and chief executive officer Emilio De Quiros, Jr., said the reason why there are over 21 million members deemed inactive is because these are no longer actively contributing to the agency.

He said inactive members are usually those who have gone abroad to work or those who have stopped working in the formal sector and are now earning through the informal sector also known as the underground economy.

De Quiros said they are now trying to open more foreign offices to reach out to more Overseas Filipino Workers.

He added that 75 percent of the country’s labor force is in the informal sector, or the self-employed people.

      To reach out to the informal sector, SSS has launched the Alkansssya program by partnering with associations like microfinance and work with municipal treasurers for members from areas so they can still pay their SSS premiums through their municipal treasurers.

De Quiros said this is the main reason why increasing the pension of retired SSS members by P2,000 is not feasible.

"We are not against any increase for benefits of our members. That has always been our stand except for the fact that what we said was if we are going to give out additional benefits, it has to have an equivalent funding mechanism," he said.

He said that without a funding mechanism, what will happen is that there will be just outflow of funds from SSS.

SSS operates in terms of providing inflow, collection and investment incomes.

"If they (legislators) want P2,000 increase today.  Then we will have to increase by 5 percent only to retain our fund life until 2042," he said.

De Quiros also said that the bill passed was only for the increase in pension but never an increase in contribution.

"If you increase benefits by P56 billion, which is our estimate, that will cost us additional P56 billion outflow. If there is no corresponding funding mechanism, which is basically the collection then you will have problems," he said.

He also added that without a funding mechanism, instead of having P41 billion income, it will be translated to P26 billion losses.

Last year, SSS collected contributions amounting to P121 billion and 8 billion collectibles in 2014 based on a report from the Commission on Audit.

SSS net income increased up to P35 billion from P8 billion for the last 10 years, which is more than four times in terms of net worth.

SSS have reached the level of contribution since 2012, which means it is sufficient to pay for benefits and operating expenses. As of last year, De Quiros said SSS is now over P11 billion in terms of contribution surplus. — (FREEMAN)