STATE-RUN Social Security System (SSS) disbursed a total of P90.52 billion in Social Security and Employees Compensation (EC) benefits for the first five months, posting a double-digit growth from P79.93 billion in the same period last year.
The benefit disbursements from January to May this year was 13.3 percent higher year-on-year, the pension fund said.
Broken down, the lion’s share of the benefit releases were for social security at P89.92 billion while the remaining P608 million were allocated for EC.
SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Aurora Ignacio said that the constant rise of benefit releases to qualified members, pensioners and beneficiaries comes as the membership base continues to increase.
“This only shows that SSS remains true to its mandate of providing meaningful social security benefits to all working Filipinos, especially during times of contingencies,” Ignacio said in a statement.
Of the total benefit releases, retirement payouts comprised 60 percent of the amount or P53.74 billion, covering over 1.81 million pensioners.
Apart from this, SSS also disbursed P23.72 billion in death benefits to 1.08 million claimants, P2.44 billion in disability benefits to 97,258 members, P5.99 billion in maternity benefits to 157,132 female members, P1.44 billion in sickness benefits to 147,210 members, P1.96 billion in funeral benefits to 84,530 claimants, and P642 million in unemployment benefits to 47,764 members.
Under the EC program, SSS also extended P426 million in death benefits to 16,492 beneficiaries, P78 million in disability benefits to 2,044 members, P98 million in sickness benefits to 11,663 members, P2 million for medical services to 393 members, and P3 million in funeral benefits to 114 claimants.
Ignacio added that employed and self-employed members are entitled to receive EC benefits on top of their regular SS benefits in case of work-related sickness or injury, disability or death.
“This is why we always reiterate in our promotional campaigns the primary responsibility of our member-employers, which is to report their workers and remit their SS and EC contributions regularly to SSS,” Ignacio said.
Since July 2020, benefit proceeds are released through disbursement accounts under PESONet participating banks, e-wallet, or Remittance Transfer Companies (RTC)/ Cash Pick-up Outlets (CPOs), or through Unified Multipurpose Identification (UMID) Card enrolled as ATM Card.