I was still working at the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) when the Supreme Court ruled on September 13, 1991 that all local water districts are Government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) with original charter and should therefore be placed under the Civil Service Commission (CSC) and the Commission on Audit (COA). This ruling was declared by the SC with finality on March 12, 1992.
But up to the time of my resignation, MCWD was still transitioning from a quasi-public corporation, remitting employee contributions to the Social Security System (SSS) instead of the GSIS. Thus, all my contributions as an MCWD employee were still reflected in my SSS account when I left the service in December 1995.
Fast forward to 2017, when I start thinking about retirement benefits. Imagine my horror when I open my SSS account to see nothing in the contributions page and in my employment history during the six years I had worked at the water district.
It was like I had never worked at MCWD at all.
What follows is a series of email exchanges and communication. I write to then MCWD Human Resources Dept. Manager Atty. Elson Ingles on December 8, 2017 about the disappearance of my SSS contributions.
A letter response to my query, signed by then General Manager Jose Eugenio B. Singson, tells me that “inquiry with SSS reveals that they cannot accommodate your request of ‘continuing your membership’ using the premium you paid through MCWD because the standing agreement between SSS and the Local Water District Administration and Philippine Association of Water Districts is for the ‘SSS to return ALL the premiums to each LWD employer ONLY.”
The February 15, 2018 letter also tells me that MCWD is still waiting for SSS to reconcile each employee record with regards to loan balances, “yielding a corrected and bigger net receivable amount for MCWD,” but that under SSC Resolution 293-s. 2007, the SSS would deduct from MCWD employee premiums, the balances of loans, “regardless of who obtained the loan.”
I am not sure if this means I will not get a full refund considering that SSS will deduct from the premiums the total balance of all loans made by its employees. All I know is that my number of SSS contributions is reduced which could adversely affect the amount of pension I could expect upon my retirement at age 60. Or not. I would have to do the Math.
On August 29, 2019, I get an email response from HRD’s Atty. Elson Englis that SSS Cebu's manager handed him the check for the premium refund as well as “a copy (voluminous one) of the list of all employee contributions. This time we will now have a basis of how much we are going to return to all the claimants.”
He assures me that the HRD, Accounting and Audit departments are devising a scheme to systematically return the money to the claimants, but that it would take time to go through the paperwork and finalize the amount each claimant would receive.
I make a follow-up in November 2019 and get an email from HRD’s Lorena C. Velos that mine is one of a pilot group of 10 accounts that the ad hoc committee on SSS premium reconciliation is working on. Once their accounting and audit teams finalize the computation of our premiums, and upon approval by the Executive committee, I could expect the release of my premiums.
Then COVID-19 happens. A follow-up email on September 29, 2022 gives me an automated response that all communications are now channeled through MCWD’s Document Management System (DMS) via its website. I am so exasperated, I leave it alone.
Just last year, I hear from former colleagues that they were able to get the cash value of their contributions by filing for retirement benefits from the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) upon reaching age 60.
It appears that I am an inactive member of the said agency upon my resignation, as provided by Section 9 (Member’s Service Profile) of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the GSIS Act of 1997 or Republic Act. No. 8291:
“A member separated from the service by reason of resignation, retirement, disability, dismissal from the service, retrenchment or in any manner of separation from the government agency to which he is employed, shall continue to be a member although classified under inactive status and his membership shall be maintained in the database of GSIS. Whatever future benefits he is entitled to shall be payable to the member once they become due.”
I do some research and come upon Section 12 of Presidential Decree 1146, otherwise known as the “Revised Government Service Insurance Act of 1977”, which seems to apply to me since I had rendered some six years of service at MCWD.
“A member who has rendered at least three years but less than 15 years of service at the time of separation shall, upon reaching 60 years of age or upon separation after age 60, receive a cash payment equivalent to 100 percent of his average monthly compensation for every year of service with an employer.”
I might be wrong. I am not a lawyer. Neither have I filed for any retirement benefits, pending retirement age. The computation could be different or based on another law I am not aware of.
But I have already made initial inquiries at GSIS Cebu. I was told how to apply for retirement benefits at the GSIS and the corresponding requirements (I will be posting about this soon).
Maybe I should try this track once I reach age 60. Applying for and securing retirement benefits at the GSIS is a sure thing, because I know people who have done it, versus the probability that MCWD will hand me a check representing my SSS premiums.
It is hard to rely on an institution that is reactive, rather than proactive, about communicating to affected ex-employees the impact of its turning GOCC on employee contributions and consequently, retirement benefits.
To those who have left their ranks like me, and who have no idea what’s going on, we can’t collect what we don’t know, can we?
