INQUIRER PHOTO/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
The House committee on good government and public accountability is poised to investigate the alleged profiteering of Social Security System (SSS) senior executives through stock trading.
“If the resolution filed by Congressman Carlos Zarate is referred to the committee, then we are duty-bound to look into the mess,” Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel, who chairs the committee, said in a statement on Sunday.
Pimentel issued the statement weeks after Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Carlos Zarate and Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone filed House resolution number 1433 and 1434, respectively.
READ: Solons seek House probe on SSS stock scheme
The two solons had asked the panel to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, into the stock trading mess involving SSS Executive Vice President Rizaldy Capulong, Senior Vice President and Chief Actuary George Ongkeko Jr., Vice President and equities investment division OIC Reginald Candelaria; and Equities Product Development Head Ernesto Francisco Jr.
“We’ve always made it a point to act on every resolution and every privilege speech assigned to the committee,” Pimentel said.
According to Zarate’s resolution, four SSS executives, who are now under administrative investigation for “serious dishonesty and grave misconduct,” allegedly “took advantage of their positions, personally traded in stocks, and made money for themselves while they were managing the pension fund’s equity investments.”
The executives, supposedly benefited from personal trades based on “material nonpublic information” on Philippine Stock Exchange-listed companies which they obtained from the pension fund’s accredited stockbrokers, Pimentel said.
They also purportedly received lucrative initial public offering (IPO) share allocations from the stockbrokers under their direct supervision, he added.
Pimentel said Ongkeko Jr. and Francisco have since resigned, while Capulong and Candelaria have been suspended from their posts and temporarily reassigned to the office of the SSS president pending resolution of the administrative complaint against them.
Pimentel earlier said he is counting on the Social Security Commission, the governing board of the SSS, to obligate the erring executives “to empty out their pockets of their crooked earnings.”
“Those profits rightfully belong to and should go to the SSS,” he said, as he stressed that it is a grave ethical offense for pension fund trustees to misuse their positions for personal gain. /je