An Unfinished Business With SSS

When I blogged about my receipt of the first tranche of my SSS retirement benefit in the form of a lump sum covering the payment of the first eighteen (18) months of my pension, you would have thought that all I need to do after that is to wait for May 2014 when the monthly remittance of my pension will commence. It is not so because I still have to follow-up the adjustment in the amount of monthly pension with respect to my contributions for the period 1985 t0 1989.

I filed an SSS form for manual verification and CYS correction (their terminology which I do not know what CYS stands for) last May 28, 2013 at the agency’s Marikina Members Assistance Center and had made three (3) follow-ups since then, the latest of which was last October 17, 2013. In my last two (2) follow-ups, I even mentioned, with her approval, the name of an officer in their head office but nothing seems to work for me to be able to get the approval of a small amount of adjustment to my meager monthly pension.

I do not know if all recent SSS pensioners need to have their contributions for a certain period manually verified so that the amount of their monthly pension be corrected. All I know is that my previous employers and I paid my contributions for the period 1985 to 1989 and that should entitle me for adjustment because the agency’s computer system did not include them in computing the monthly pension it awarded to me.

In fairness,  I was told to apply for pension adjustment by the SSS personnel who reviewed and received my application for retirement benefit in January 9, 2013. If you are a recently retired SSS pensioner and you were not told to file for manual verification and CYS correction, I suggest that you inquire from them if you are entitled to apply for adjustment in your monthly pension.

Our Social Security System (SSS) does not make public how the pensions of retired members are computed. A pensioner is not shown how the agency arrives at the amount of monthly pension he should receive. In these days of alleged cheating by both elected and appointed officers of our government, should we believe that our SSS officials are not fooling us? Isn’t it time for us to be shown how our SSS pensions are computed?

UPDATE: As of today, 13 August 2016 or 3-1/2 years after I filed my request for adjustment in my SSS pension and with constant follow-up throughout the period, I still have the unfinished business I described above.