Senate urges SSS to recover board members' bonuses

The Senate finance committee on Wednesday urged Social Security System (SSS) officials to recover the money received by at least three of its former board members who sat as directors in private corporations on behalf of the pension fund. SSS chairman Juan Santos and president Emilio De Quiros should recover the money received by former SSS chairman Thelmo Cunanan, former SSS chief Romulo Neri, and SSS legal consultant Sergio Apostol while they were on the board of directors of Philex Mining Corp., Unionbank of the Philippines, and First Philippine Holdings Inc., committee chair Sen. Franklin Drilon said. Neri, Apostol, and Cunanan were able to sit as directors in those publicly listed companies because SSS, the pension fund for private sector employees, own shares of stock in those companies. "I urge [Santos and De Quiros] and the new administration of SSS to institute measures to recover these payments given to their previous SSS commissioners," the senator said in an interview with reporters Wednesday. Citing data from several private companies, he said Cunanan received P132.6 million in per diems and bonuses, profit sharing and stock options, and other bonuses as the SSS representative to the board of Philex, Unionbank, and First Holdings from 2007 to 2010. Neri likewise received P44.2 million – P36.9 million were bonuses – while he was on the board of Philex and Unionbank from 2008 to 2010, and Apostol got P25.1 million including P23.4 million in bonuses from 2008 to 2010. There was no law that specifically prohibited them from accepting the money from the private corporations, Neri said last week. Drilon acknowledged that board members were entitled to per diems, but not to other benefits "appropriated for themselves" through SSS investments. "They have no right to this because these are funds given to them because of the investment of the SSS, not because of their investment," he said. The pension fund also holds enough shares in Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co., Security Bank and Trust Co., Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., Energy Development Corp., Globe Telecom Inc., and Ayala Corp., giving SSS the power to appoint its own directors. —VS, GMANews.TV