My SSS pension saga: Lessons learned

The saga of my Social Security System (SSS) pension is truly a worthwhile experience. Not a smooth ride nor a walk in the park—from preparation until you begin to receive your hard-earned monthly pension via a designated bank account. Lots of visits, asking, and getting help from your work colleagues and friends, follow-up emails, and feelings of frustration along the way. Plenty of lessons learned and realized from the whole bittersweet experience. Just want to share some takeaways to aid some future pension applicants.

1. Prepare to iron out all records, as early as three years before the planned retirement year.

2. For multiple employers (mine is six, with some of them already closed a long time ago), you need to check if all contributions are accounted for. Mine has one that has many months with no entries on record (stalled manual update after the Edsa Revolution). Thus, have to ask for aid from ex-colleagues (Thanks to them).

3. Sought help from Contact Center ng Bayan (CCB) as recommended by a friend to hasten action and resolution of your complaint. The CCB is under the Civil Service Commission, which monitors the performance of government agencies like SSS.

4. Every unaccounted contribution affects the final figure of your monthly pension. Thus, a need for accurate data.

5. Even if you’re on the “priority” group, being a senior citizen, it’s not a short wait because most in the room are seniors.

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The whole journey took me around six months to wrestle with all the hardships and frustration in dealing with a government institution. In contrast, my experience with Pag-Ibig compared to SSS is like day and night. But now, the first new “benefit” from SSS after 68 years is like a breath of fresh air for pensioners.

Jerome L. Escobedo,

Lapu-Lapu City