The other week, I gave my house help their annual raise in salary and told them I would advance the money for the entire year and open a bank account for each of them with it. (I wish I was the one who came up with this brilliant strategy, but it was Noet Ravalo who wrote about this in his column piece “Savings program for ‘kasam-bahays’”)

As I was asking whether they had any form of identification that we can use to open a bank account, I discovered that they had applied for SSS membership (something that I had suggested to them a year or so ago) but that it would take six months for them to get their ID.

Hmm. Should I encourage them to contribute to the SSS?
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I have been researching for three weeks now on the nature of members’ benefits from state pension funds Government Service Insurance System and the Social Security System. As you know, the times call for a more determined look into financial help people can tap in times of need, and state pension funds were created especially for that.

I was expecting the article to unfold as a helpful “what to do” story on how to tap benefits more aggressively; an educational foray if you will on benefits that are there anyway for the average worker.

A friend alerted me over the weekend, however, on a very disturbing matter. Many employees in the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) who had applied for loans from the GSIS have been paying interest and principal far longer than the terms required under their loan. The reason? Computer records do not match. Their personal records of salary deductions to pay their loans do not match that of the GSIS. Some borrowers have been paying for more than 20 months for a loan that would have been paid in full for 12!

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