The Internet is abuzz with feeds and comments about the 30-year-old commissioner of the Social Security System who rakes in almost P6 million a year at her job.
The commissioner, with a degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management, used to be the chief of staff of presidential candidate Manuel Roxas II. No wonder she is seated comfortably between Roxas and his vice presidential candidate, Leni Robredo, inside a private plane during one of their campaign sorties. In that shot, they were flashing the “L” sign of the Liberal Party, all smiles.
If we looked hard enough, we will likely be disappointed that this young woman’s credentials and experience are not as stellar as her compensation package—this, excluding all other perks she enjoys sitting on the board of corporations where the SSS holds significant amount of shares.
Even her bosses do not make as much as she does, it appears from the leaked list of annual salaries of commissioners and top officials of the SSS.
The commissioner’s great luck comes amid the misfortune of 2 million SSS retirees whose P2,000 pension increase was vetoed by President Benigno Aquino III last month. Both Houses of Congress had agreed to grant the increase, acknowledging the higher cost of goods and the increased medical requirements of senior citizens.
But no, Mr. Aquino said. The increase would bankrupt the SSS in just a few years’ time. What would benefit 2 million would endanger the future of 30 million members who are counting on the fund’s health when it is their time to reap the benefits of their own contributions, decades from now.
This would have been a good argument, admirable even, had the President shown us his method of arriving at the conclusion that granting the P2,000 increase would be unsound, albeit popular. Actuarial figures would accomplish that purpose, especially if they tell us that they have exhausted all means to keep the fund robust—but failed.
What we see instead is a revolting spreadsheet that details the abhorrent compensation packages of SSS executives—perhaps some too young and clueless to realize the high social and moral cost at which their great fortune comes.
This is once again a preview of the Daang Matuwid: Seemingly upright and virtuous at some points, but scandalous and downright offensive in some. Do we honestly want more of this duplicity in the next six years?
