Good news to all pensioners and active Social Security System (SSS) members: Pres. Rodrigo Duterte has approved a Php1,000 increase in the pension starting this month, January 2017!
While the increase is just half of the proposed Php2,000 pension hike, this is best thing the government can give to pensioners without the agency going bankrupt soon. The other half, another Php1,000, will be released in January 2022.
It can be recalled that the Php2,000 pension hike was among Duterte’s campaign promises but his advisers were opposed to the idea because this could lead to the agency’s bankruptcy. As the public pushed for the hike, the president instructed his men to find a win-win situation – and it seems that they had found the best solution.
Not only will the pension hike be split (half given in 2017 and the other in 2022), the other solution is to increase the premium contributions of active members; thus, starting May 2017, all active members will have to shell out an extra 1.5% from their current premiums.
The SSS will release a new table of premium contributions soon.
[Photo credit: PhilStar]
Thanking the president for his “sense of caring for our pensioners”, SSS chair Amado Valdez also revealed that they were instructed to go after employers who are not paying their employees’ contributions properly to increase the agency’s collection rate.
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