State-run Social Security System (SSS) over the weekend said its contribution collections jumped by more than P22.19 billion in 2018 on the back of the aggressive collection efforts of the agency.
SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Emmanuel F. Dooc said members’ contributions hit P181.92 billion in 2018, up by 13.89 percent from the P159.72 billion recorded in 2017.
“We are very pleased that we have ended the year 2018 on a positive notch. Contribution collections comprised more than 86 percent of our total revenue last year,” Dooc said.
Based on the unaudited financial records of the pension fund, total revenues of SSS reached P212.57 billion in 2018, registering a growth of 6.02 percent from the P200.50 billion recorded in 2017.
Total expenditures of the pension fund, on the other, slightly rose by 5.33 percent to P189.84 billion in 2018 from the P180.23 billion recorded a year ago. Broken down, benefit payments contributed largely to the increase in total expenditures in 2018 with P180.08 billion following the adjustments in Employees’ Compensation (EC) benefits in the middle of the year while operating expenses barely increased to P9.76 billion from the P9.54 billion recorded a year ago.
“As you can see, benefit payments was P9.39 billion higher than last year. Increase in the number of benefit claims rose by an average of 7 percent in the last six months of the year. The implementation of the EC benefit adjustment also contributed to the increase in benefit disbursements along with the release of the 13th-month pension of qualified pensioners and their dependents,” Dooc said.
SSS, the administrator of EC claims for private employees, said more than P442.38 million was disbursed to 17,619 EC pensioners for the additional benefit of P1,150 starting on January 2017 until October 2018 including the 13th-month pension for the year 2017 and for the additional P425 carer’s allowance per month starting May 2018 to October 2018.
SSS’ financial standing remained well-managed with total resources of P507.32 billion or P2.45 billion higher than the 2017 year-end level of P504.87 billion as of end-December 2018.
“We hope to continue this growth in performance in terms of our collections this year. We are hopeful, especially with the passing of the SS Act of 2018, to continue to post growth in performance and further serve our members and pensioners quality programs and privileges,” Dooc said.
