Drilon asks SSS trustees to refund money from private firms

Trustees of the Social Security System of should return the money they received as directors in private corporations on behalf of the pension fund, the Senate finance committee said Tuesday. Sen. Franklin Drilon, who heads the committee, cited outgoing SSS chairman Thelmo Cunanan, former SSS chief Romulo Neri, and SSS legal consultant Sergio Apostol who supposedly earned a combined P46 million just by sitting on the Union Bank board of directors. He noted that the combined earnings of the three executives amounted to nearly half of the P100 million the SSS earned last year. Drilon earlier said that Cunanan received P83.1 million in total compensation from the Philex Mining Corporation; Neri, P17.2 million; former SSS chief Corazon dela Paz-Bernardo, P20.7 million; and SSS commissioner Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., P6.3 million. From exercising their stock options in Philex Mining Corp., Drilon explained that Cunanan gained P66.6 million, Neri earned P11.9 million, Dela Paz made P9.7 million, and Luis gained P4.6 million. Aside from Philex and Union Bank, SSS owns enough shares of stocks of Energy Development Corp., Globe Telecommunications, and Ayala Corp., among others, that the pension fund is entitled to board seats in such companies. "The point is [the trustees] should have given this option to the SSS, so that the SSS should be given the option to exercise this (stock option)," Drilon said. Drilon thus reiterated his call for President Benigno Aquino III to suspend excessive payments and bonuses of executives in government-owned and -controlled corporations. "These people will continue to get these benefits, which are really uncalled for, which are really [excessive], even obscene," he said -Kimberly Jane Tan/VS/KBK, GMANews.TV