Two employers arrested due to non-remittance of SSS contribution

Non-Remittance of SSS Contributions: What to do?

Have you ever wondered what you can do if you learn that your employer is not remitting contributions to SSS? We all know that every Philippine company is required or mandated by the Republic Act 8282 or the Social Security Law to remit the contributions of the employees but still there are employers who do not take this innate obligation seriously.

I am writing this article as means of helping those Googlers of the Boolean string “my employer did not remit my SSS contribution” or anything similar to that. To observe confidentiality, I will be obscuring the name of the people, the organization, etc. that are directly involved in this issue and will use ABC123 to refer to my employer.

READ:  4 Employers Convicted for Non-Remittance of SSS

After working for ABC123, a company of about 15 employees, for a year and four months, I learned that the amount being deducted from my pay which reflected on my pay slips were not remitted to SSS except for the very first month of my employment. As a matter of fact, remittance was also not made for my PhilHealth. I will discuss the process concerning PhilHealth in my future post but, for now, I will devote this article to the discussion on SSS.

I was hired on January 27, 2014 and resigned on May 15, 2015. I took advantage of my last month with the company to process the documents I needed for my transfer to a new company. These documents were for my SSS, PhilHealth, HDMF, transfer of RDO, etc.

My visit to an SSS office astonished me as I was informed by a staff that no remittances since March 2014 were ever received for my account. I could have found it out at an earlier time myself if the online facility of SSS was working properly then. The same staff told me that the SSS website could not provide information about remittances as it was under maintenance during that time.

Additionally, not only that my contributions never arrived but also the loan payments because prior to joining ABC123, I had been working for a company in Makati and it was when I applied for a loan with SSS for the very first time.

The revelation was absolutely frustrating and disappointing. I felt as though I was swindled and fooled. I had to communicate with the owner of the company to procure a decent explanation about the issue.  The owner admitted that “the remittances were inadvertently overlooked.” It was a feeble excuse from someone whose name bears the title MBA. Her statement reminded me of the proverb “ignorance of the law excuses no one.”

As much as possible, I do not want to take the case to a judicial process. I prefer a closed door discussion with the individuals who are responsible for it. Unfortunately, I have heard no specific demarche the company is taking or is going to take to ensure that everything will be settled and when it will be settled with urgency. The only information I get is that the company will pay the amount of unpaid remittances as soon as the business earns enough funds to pay its debts.

I demanded that the company settle my loan payment at least as it is incurring interest on a daily basis. They made an attempt to do it but the effort was futile.

June 18, 2015: The Company paid my loan balance and a proof of payment was electronically sent to me.

July 28, 2015: I went to SSS to confirm if the payment has been received, but the payment still did not reflect on the system. I notified ABC123 of my discovery.

July 29, 2015: I received communication from ABC123 indicating that the company representative who did the payment on June 18, 2015 was not informed of the new policy of SSS. The policy requires companies to hand over to SSS a soft copy of the beneficiaries of the payment made. Thanks to me, I became instrumental in letting them know how to run their business with SSS.

August 13, 2015: I visited SSS for the third time and the lady I spoke with told me of the same thing: a USB has to be handed over to the corporate section of SSS by the company representative. I relayed right away this information to ABC123. The response I got was that they were on their way to process the loan payment.

WHAT CAN AN EMPLOYEE, LIKE ME, DO TO ADDRESS THIS ISSUE?

This rigmarole feels like taking forever; therefore, I need to change my course of action. As I have been informed by SSS, I need to fill out a form called “Sinumpaang Salaysay” which must be notarized and submitted to the Account Management Section (AMS) of the SSS branch the company remits contributions to. From there, the investigation will follow and the rest will be left to the claws of the law.

I realized that my hopes for arriving at a friendly resolution are gloomy. Nevertheless, I am still going to wait for the company’s communication one last time. If my desired method is still not followed, then there is nothing left for me to do but to listen to the advice of the people around me which is to take the necessary judicial steps.