MANILA, Philippines — The Home public accounts panel is about look into the monetary situation of the Social Safety System after passage of a invoice suspending a deliberate hike in member contributions.
The preliminary briefing carried out by SSS is slated for Monday, February 15.
In an announcement issued Sunday morning, Rep. Jose Singson Jr. (Probinsyano Ako Social gathering-Record), who chairs the Home Committee on Public Accounts, mentioned that he had filed Home Decision No. 1563 calling for the congressional inquiry that may decide any “weaknesses or excesses” within the social safety program that will require amendatory laws.
“Congress has strengthened and continues to strengthen the SSS for the aim of aiding the agency to realize its essential targets as set forth within the regulation and the company’s implementing guidelines and laws,” Singson mentioned in his assertion.
To recall, the decrease chamber in late January authorised Home Invoice No. 8512, which seeks to amend Republic Act No. 11199 or the Social Safety Act of 2018.
This got here as the SSS contribution price was anticipated to extend from 12% in 2020 to 13% in 2021 based on the regulation. In response to Singson, although, the aim of the scheduled hike on the time of the regulation’s passage was to “broaden the powers and duties of the social insurance coverage agency to make sure the long-term viability of the system.”
In response, the insurance coverage firm urged Congress in late January to rethink the transfer, saying the attainable delay would in impact weaken and put extra pressure on the SSS fund amid the coronavirus pandemic and may boomerang on tens of millions of its members.
Within the 2019 Annual Monetary Report for Authorities Companies, COA disclosed that SSS is among the many high revenue earners, registering 16.71% or P268.10 billion out of the entire 1.6 trillion gross earnings of state-owned and managed companies.
The yr earlier than, the fee additionally directed SSS administration to enhance its assortment mechanisms, noting that excellent membership loans had reached as much as P78.95 billion over a four-year interval. The state audit company has additionally famous enormous overpayments on loans to members which have but to be refunded.
Audit examiners additionally disclosed that lack of monitoring associated to evaluation and assortment of delinquencies, not less than P186.2 billion in premium contributions of 463,261 have remained uncollected as of December 31, 2019.
Singson mentioned that the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic within the Philippines “triggered sturdy public clamor for deferment of the member contribution adjustment,” citing the annual audit studies submitted to Congress by the Fee on Audit from earlier years, which he mentioned threw into query “the best way the SSS has been managing the members’ contribution.”
Earlier in January, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered a halt within the enhance of members’ contribution to the government-run Philippine Well being Insurance coverage Corp., a name the state well being insurer later heeded. — Franco Luna with a report from Xave Gregorio
