LEGAZPI CITY—The news of the approval of the P1,000 increase in Social Security System (SSS) pension has brought a sigh of relief to some retirees.
To Feliciana Alban, 65, the increase means she can finally start saving for herself and her family, something she was not able to do before on her P1,200 monthly pension.
Alban, a house helper since she was 26 when she was widowed with four children, continues to do menial jobs to help her children and grandchildren in their household expenses and schooling.
Her pension is not enough because while her needs are covered by living with people she works for, she has to support members of her family.
Alban said she would keep the additional P1,000 in her bank account for emergency needs of her children and grandchildren, or when she gets sickly as she ages.
Sack of rice
Marcial Tuanqui Jr., 71, a former bank manager from Daraga, Albay province, said the pension hike would translate to a sack of rice monthly.
It also means additional savings since the P14,000 monthly pension he currently receives is just enough for utilities and can barely cover his medications for diabetes and for his family’s food.
With his household of five persons, the realization of half of President Duterte’s original campaign promise of P2,000 in pension hike already means big help. The other P1,000 increase is expected to come by 2022.
Edmundo O. Samson, 67, a former hotelier in Camalig, Albay, said Mr. Duterte must have felt fear of the public’s disapproval, prompting him to approve the increase this January.
“(But) it is better than nothing,” he said. “Big help to those who receive less than P3,000.”
P8,200 pension
To Samson, only P200 remains from his current P8,200 pension after paying bills.
“My wife is also a pensioner. (She receives) a little less than P7,000. My daughter and her husband live with us with our grandchildren. Of course they share our expenses,” he said.
Among their expenses are salaries for two house help and a gardener.
He said even the P2,000 may not be enough with their present cost of living.
Needs
Nadja Esteban, 64, a retired midwife from a private hospital in Lucena City, already knows what she is going to do in case the entire P2,000 pension hike would be approved.
“I already allotted that P2,000 increase to cover my monthly medicines,” she told the Inquirer.
Esteban, a widow, has been receiving P7,000 in monthly pension since 2012. Her only daughter is a nurse working in the Middle East for the past two years.
But even with the financial assistance from her daughter, she said her monthly pension was hardly enough to cover her expenses.
“Though I’m living alone, my pension could barely cover my daily expenses—food, monthly bills, occasional socials with friends and small savings for future expenses like taxes and for emergency,” she said.
Biggest allocation
Esteban said her maintenance medicine accounted for the biggest allocation from her pension.
“Oh my goodness, I could not even afford to buy my medicines,” Dolores Hapa, 75, a retired teacher at Naga College Foundation in Naga City, said on how her P4,500 monthly SSS pension was spent.
Hapa, though single, lives with her grandnephew with a brood of 12.
Her grandnephews do not have secure livelihoods. One earns a living from driving a pedicab while another accepts odd jobs.
Working retirees
To former Masbate media man Gerry Zaragoza, 65, retirement did not bring him rest since a large portion of his monthly SSS pension of P9,500 was used to amortize his house.
“I still have to work in order to cope,” said Zaragoza, a media consultant based in Quezon City.
He said that if not for his wife, a government employee, they would have been considered hard up since what remained of his monthly pension was not enough to cover daily expenses.
Suggested solutions
Samson said that if the President would further make good of his entire campaign promise to SSS pensioners and the other P1,000 increase would be released in 2022, it would leave the SSS bankrupt and unable to serve future senior citizen pensioners.
“We would just have to budget. Between my wife and I, we could get by with P15,000 monthly in the province. With our income, we could survive. Anyway, we have only a few more years to live,” he said.
Esteban suggested that if the government could not really increase the SSS pension, “the least that it can do is to give more discounts to senior citizens.”
Tuanqui favored the SSS intensifying loan and premium collections, avoiding bad investments, selling acquired assets, imposing higher penalties on delinquent employers and streamlining operational and administrative company costs in SSS. —REPORTS FROM MAR S. ARGUELLES, JUAN ESCANDOR JR., DELFIN T. MALLARI JR. AND MADONNA T. VIROLA