MANILA, Philippines - Contributions made by Social Security System members and employers in Northern National Capital Region(NCR) grew almost 19 percent in the first quarter, driven by the pension fund’s branch expansion and collection programs.
In a statement issued Wednesday, the SSS said collections jumped to P8.46 billion from P7.12 billion.
SSS president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Dooc attributed the higher contributions to its intensified campaign versus delinquent employers.
“Oplan Tokhang and RACE (Run Against Contribution Evaders) campaign has direct impact on every employer’s compliance motivations by emphasizing their obligation of supporting the welfare of their workers through social security coverage, on-time remittance of their monthly contribution and loan amortizations, and advance disbursement of other SSS benefits,” Dooc said.
The pension fund also identified the improved services offered by its branch offices to its members as another driver of collection growth.
“Branch offices are usually conducting regular activities in order to promote the value of SSS membership as well as to increase collections through mapping operations, coverage and information drives, in-house seminars, audit of employer records, and regular submission of referrals to Cluster Legal Units for issuance of demand letters,” Dooc added.
In line with better branch services, SSS said it recently transferred its San Francisco del Monte(SFDM) branch to a bigger office space.
The relocated branch will to cater to 14,893 employers and 147,327 employees, pensioners, self-employed, voluntary and OFW members in over 34 barangays under first District of Quezon City. It is expected to facilitate an average of 6,000 transactions per day.
Among the services offered by the SFDM branch are the issuance of social security (SS) number; receipt and processing of benefit claims, salary loans and employer registration; amendment of employer/employee data records; Unified Multi-purpose Identification (UMID) Card capture; Annual Confirmation of Pensioners (ACOP); and processing of ER3 and Electronic Loan Management System (ELMS).
Categorized under full-servicing branch, the newly-relocated office facilitates an average of 6,000 transactions per day.
SSS also relocated two branches in NCR namely SSS Novaliches and Mandaluyong.
Last week, the state run pension fund opened its upgraded branch in Roxas City in Capiz, in line with improving its services in the Visayas region.
The pension fund saw a 9.6 percent growth in total collections from member contributions in January to April to P52.18 billion.