Pension fund Social Security System (SSS) expects its net income to exceed P100 billion in 2024, fueled by growth in investments and member contributions, its top executive said Thursday.
“I expect it [net income] to be over P100 billion,” SSS president and chief executive Rolando Macasaet told reporters in a briefing.
SSS earned P83.13 billion in 2023, higher than P52.6 billion in 2022 as its revenues grew 15.6 percent to P353 billion from P306 billion.
Macasaet attributed the growth in net income this year to the higher contribution collection and investments.
“The stock market today is almost 7,000. We will hit 7,000, and if we hit 8,000 by year-end and we have almost P500 billion in the PSE [Philippine Stock Exchange], so you can imagine the amount of income we’ll make,” Macasaet said.
The state-run pension fund has more than P60 billion in receivables.
Macasaet targets to increase its members by about 1.5 million to 2 million a year from its average member of 1 million.
SSS has about 42 million members, with about 20 million of them paying members.
Meanwhile, Macasaet ordered an increase in the frequency of its Run After Contribution Evaders (RACE) campaign nationwide to further reduce the uncollected contribution from delinquent employers.
Macasaet said the uncollected contributions in 2022 reached P92 billion, but the SSS brought it down by 39 percent to P56 billion in 2023 on the back of aggressively pursuing delinquent employers and continuously updating employer records.
The Commission on Audit (COA) called out the SSS in 2022 for failing to collect over P92 billion from half a million delinquent employers. According to state auditors, 466,881 employers did not remit P92.49 billion in premium contributions, penalties and damages.
Macasaet said the SSS filed cases in court against 2,422 errant employers, majority of which opted to settle their delinquencies either through full payment or via installment schemes, resulting in a record collection P1.37 billion in 2023 from P1.15 billion in 2022.
He said that the RACE campaign is one of the programs that played a vital role in pursuing delinquent employers nationwide.
RACE was an operation conducted by the state fund to ensure that employers comply with their obligation as stipulated in Republic Act No. 11199 or the Social Security Act of 2018.
