THE chief of Cebu City’s Office of the Seniors Citizens Affairs (OSCA) voiced disappointment over President Benigno Aquino III’s veto on House Bill 5842 which mandated a P2,000 across-the-board increase in the monthly pension of SSS retirees.
Domingo Chavez, head of Cebu City Hall’s Office of the Senior Citizens Affairs (OSCA), said he received calls from senior citizens who voiced their dismay on hearing the news.
“That’s sad news. It was supposed to benefit more then two million pensioners especially at this time when the prices of medicines are skyrocketing,” he said yesterday.
A senior citizen and pensioner of the Social Security System (SSS) himself, Chavez said the P2,000 increase could have helped him pay for his six maintenance medicines and his power, water, cable TV and phone bills.
He’s living with his sister since his wife and children are in the US.
Aquino said in his veto message that the increases will result in “substantial negative income” for the SSS.
But Chavez said the government could opt to subsidize the SSS.
He suggested that instead of granting huge salaries to officers of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), and lump sum amounts to public officials like the pork barrel, the amounts could be shared with SSS pensioners. In Cebu City, he said there are 98,000 senior citizens bearing valid IDs from OSCA.
Of the number, 30 percent are SSS pensioners, Chavez said.