Floating SSS Pensions – Part 2

SSS-LogoThe second image on this blog is a screenshot of the last ten transactions on my exclusive bank account where the Social Security System (SSS) remits my monthly retirement pension. You may click the image to see a more readable version. I had already posted an earlier blog about my bank’s practice of holding on to my small SSS monthly pension for at least ten (10) days before they make it available for my withdrawal. My purpose in having this second post about my floating SSS pension is to prove if my previous observation was correct and possibly call the attention of concerned SSS officers that the practice is prevailing and unfair to pensioners.

Take note that the amount of PH₱3,093.30 was credited to my account yesterday (August 01, 2014) and, per previous experience, it will remain floating (credited but cannot be withdrawn) for at least 10 days more. I will post an update here once I had it available which is usually on the same day I will withdraw an amount from my account. I hope that my bank will make it available for withdrawal in at most 2 to 3 banking days (“bank float” in their parlance) though I have already said in my previous post on the subject that it should be immediately withdrawable because the banks are collecting agents of SSS contributions so the monies for the payments of our pensions are already in their hands.

Click to see a larger image

Click to see a larger image

By the way, did you notice in attached bank statement that my SSS monthly pension increased from PH₱2,946.00 to PH₱3,093.30 for a total of PH₱147.30 to be exact. I cannot think of any reason for such increase except that SSS has finally granted me an adjustment for my 1985 to 1989 contributions which I requested one year and two months ago (please see An Unfinished Business With SSS). To my readers who are recent SSS pensioners (I know there are not many so I also call on their children and grandchildren) . . . Do you know that if you were active members in 1985 to 1989, your contributions on this years were not included in the computation of your monthly pension and that you have to file a request for adjustment in order to get  the adjustment?

If my assumption that the PH₱147.30 increase in the amount credited to my bank account is the adjustment to my monthly SSS pension due to my 1985 to 1989 contributions, then I would like to ask SSS if I am entitled to differential backpay for the twenty-one (21) months before August 2014 when I got only my unadjusted monthly pension. Consider this, if I am entitled to get a backpay, it is only PH₱3,093.30 that’s due to me but if you will consider the possibility that there hundreds of thousands of similarly situated SSS pensioners, then we are not talking of peanuts here. I hope SSS would enlighten us on this issue.

UPDATE 1 (08-02-2014 7:25pm) – A reader-friend sent me a note to tell me that the PH₱147.30 increase in my August pension is exactly 5% of my original PH₱2,946.00 monthly pension so the amount represents the recently announced 5% increase in the pension of all SSS retirees. This means that I still have my unfinished business with SSS with regards to the adjustment I requested for my 1985 to 1989 contributions.

UPDATE 2 (08-30-2014) – I monitored my account daily since making this post using online banking and found that my August SSS pension became available or withdrawable on August 08, 2014. So, it took 7 days for my bank to release my money this time. A little improvement from the 12 to 14 days in months prior to August 2014.

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