The Social Security System has been urged to freeze all bank and financial accounts and seize the stocks of four of its officials which were allegedly acquired through fraudulent means.
Bayan Muna party-list Representative Carlos Zarate made the recommendation on Tuesday after SSS commissioner Jose Gabriel La Viña filed administrative complaints against Executive Vice President Rizaldy Capulong and three other officers for allegedly profiting from their position by trading their own stocks with the same stockbrokers who manage the portfolio of the government-run pension fund.
“Do not just file charges and prosecute these people, SSS must move to immediately freeze all banks and/or financial accounts and sequester stocks and assets and its proceeds in favor of the SSS fund,” Zarate said in a statement.
Aside from Capulong, also named respondents in the complaint were equities investment division chief Reginald Candelaria, equities product development head Ernesto Francisco Jr. and chief actuary George Ongkeko Jr.
“Nalaman nila iyan dahil yung stock broker ng SSS, every month nagbi-briefing yun sa amin kung ano magandang stock, ano magandang mga IPO na darating. So itong impormasyon na to na pwede silang kumita ng pera, nakuha nila dahil sa position nila,” La Vina said in a television interview on Monday.
“They used that information to make the profits for themselves,” he added.
Zarate said imposing upon SSS members additional contributions allegedly to improve the fund life is “outright unjust and immoral.”
“This is truly infuriating considering that those in charge of increasing and improving the members’ fund life through prudent and high-return investments are instead the ones sabotaging it the members’ fund,” he said.
“It’s just criminally shameless for these people to even push for a contribution increase,” he added.
Zarate said when Congress should look into the highly-irregular case when it resumes session next month.
“We have long been pushing for SSS to institute serious reforms, internal especially,” Zarate said.
“Thus, in the meantime, in fairness to the members, we call on the SSS leadership and its top management to defer first any plan of collecting additional contribution from the already burdened members,” he added.