DOF backs PNoy’s veto of P2,000 pension hike

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima hailed the President's decision to veto the SSS pension increase proposal, saying that it would have adversely affected the financial future of prospective retirees had it been passed.

"As a stand-alone measure, the vetoed bill would have granted a pension increase to two million current retirees but imperiled the financial future of 31 million of our prospective retirees," he said in a statement late Friday.

"This is about the survival of the fund: had this bill passed, there wouldn't even be any pensions to speak of in a little more than a decade," he said.

According to Purisima, the proposed measure would have caused the SSS to get into "a fiscal cliff of insolvency."

The increased pay-outs would have shortened the actuarial life of the Social Security Fund from the year 2042 to 2027 and it would also have doubled the unfunded liability from P1.2 trillion to P2.4 trillion, he said.

"It was a choice between demanding better legislation for our people or dooming 31 million of our future retirees. The President, constrained by the judgment of history on one hand and the judgment of the headline on the other, chose to put responsibility over politics," Purisima said.

"We commend the President's refusal to let electoral politics get in the way of our responsibility to the Filipino people," he said. -Jon Viktor Cabuenas/NB, GMA News