SENATE PASSES RESOLUTION RAISING SSS MONTHLY PENSION BY P1,000

More than two million pensioners of the Social Security System will receive a monthly Christmas gift from the pension fund starting this month after the Senate on Wednesday approved a resolution calling for an immediate increase of P1,000 in the monthly pension of all SSS pensioners.

The members of the Senate approved the Senate resolution proposed by Senator Richard J. Gordon just before session adjourned for the Christmas break.

"We manifest that it is the sense of the Senate to increase the monthly pension of all SSS pensioners by P1,000 effective immediately," Gordon said in the resolution.

"This is the first tranche. Congress wants to give the second by 2019, by June 2018 I will call for a meeting with the SSS so that we can discuss the second tranche. I know a P1,000-peso increase is not really much, I would prefer to give P6,000. But it would not do to force the SSS to give a higher increase which could shorten its life span. But in January, we will meet with the SSS officials to discuss proposals on how they can increase their collection and income from, among other measures, the non-performing assets that they have and to encourage them to increase the collection efficiency and coverage ratio," he added.

Gordon noted that a law was not really needed for the SSS to increase benefits received by the members, adding that the last time the pension fund increased monthly pension was in 2014, when it implemented a P60-peso increase. There was no law enacted then.

He also cited Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto, and Senators Cynthia Villar and Joel Villanueva as being supportive of the resolution.