QuestionsQuestions (PRESIDENTIAL DECREE NO. 177)
Beneficiaries include the legitimate spouse, legitimate, legitimated, acknowledged natural children, natural children by legal fiction, other illegitimate children and their legitimate descendants, and the legitimate parents. In the absence of any of these, any other person designated by the covered employee.
Coverage is compulsory upon all employees not over sixty years old and their employers, with specific provisions for integration with private benefit plans and options for Filipinos recruited in the Philippines by foreign-based employers for employment abroad to be covered voluntarily.
A covered employee must have paid at least 120 monthly contributions and either be 60 years old and separated from employment or earning less than 250 pesos monthly; or be 65 years old with the said contributions; or have paid at least 36 contributions and be permanently totally disabled.
The pension is computed as 45% of the first 300 pesos, 25% of the next 300 pesos, 9% of each succeeding 100 pesos of the average monthly salary credit plus one-tenth of one percent of the average monthly salary credit for each monthly contribution in excess of 120.
The monthly pension is suspended if the retired employee under 65 years old is re-employed and earns 250 pesos or more monthly, or if a permanently totally disabled retiree recovers or fails to present for annual medical examination upon SSS notice.
At death, the covered employee’s beneficiaries get the basic lump sum plus 5/12 of one percent of the lump sum for each contribution in excess of 120 provided the employee paid 18 contributions in the last 36 months before death or has a payment ratio of at least 80%. If not, the benefit is adjusted by multiplying by 1.25 times the payment ratio.
The death benefit shall not be less than the total contributions paid by the employee and employer nor less than five hundred pesos. If death occurs in the month of coverage, the minimum benefit applies.
Employers have a six-month grace period to pay delinquent contributions without the 3% penalty. After that, the 3% penalty applies from when contributions became due. Exceptions apply if a payment plan was submitted before April 19, 1973.
Persons making false statements or representations to cause payment under the Act commit a crime punishable under Article 172 of the Revised Penal Code.
Violators face fines ranging from 500 to 5,000 pesos, imprisonment from 6 months to 1 year, or both. In cases of failure to register employees or remit deducted contributions, both fine and imprisonment apply without discretion.