The Philippine government has approved the P1,000 pension increase allocated to around 2 million Social Security System retirees.
The pension hike would be retroactive from January 2017, which means additional pension for January will also be provided to retired SSS members.
President Rodrigo R. Duterte has agreed to raise the SSS pension to provide social protection to retirees.
SSS originally proposed a P2,000 pension hike, but economic managers were against the plan, saying it could raise SSS liabilities and cut its actuarial life if such pension increase is not accompanied by higher member contributions.
According to Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia and Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, a P2,000 pension hike would bloat SSS liabilities to P5.9 trillion from P3.5 trillion. The proposed pension hike was also expected to reduce SSS’s fund life by 10 years.
About P7 billion worth of pension cash would be released to 2.2 million SSS pensioners by first week of March. SSS president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Dooc said pensioners would receive the additional P1,000 pension increase for January, February and March on March 3, 10 and 17, respectively.
“Starting on April 2017, the benefit increase will be incorporated already in the regular pension,” Dooc said.