SCREENGRAB from www.sss.gov.ph
A lawmaker on Sunday urged the House of Representatives to pass a proposed measure implementing a P2,000 across-the-board increase in the pension of Social Security System (SSS) members.
Bayan Muna party-list representative Neri Colmenares said that after hurdling the House Committee on Government Enterprises and Privatization, the lower house should pass House Bill 175 before it closes its second regular session on June 11.
“This means that those receiving the basic P1,200 pension per month would now receive P3,200 if this version of the bill is finally enacted. All the succeeding pension brackets would also have a P2,000 increase. This is indeed a positive development but we will still push for more increases for SSS pensioners…I hope that we can jointly push for the speedy approval of HB 175 before the June 11 break,” Colmenares said.
The militant lawmaker said that although the P2,000 pension increase was P3,000 lower than what he originally proposed, the passage of the bill in the House committee is “a good start.”
“While it is way below the P5,000 minimum pension we proposed in HB 175, the P2,000 pension hike is a good start and we hope that the House leadership would prioritize the passing of this bill before the break,” he said.
In August last year, SSS implemented a five percent across-the-board pension increase for its members.
SSS serves about 1.9 million retired workers.
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