The Social Security System urged its members to avail of the new Loan Penalty Condonation program which started April 2 and will end on Sept. 31, 2012.

In a press conference held June 14 at the Hotel del Rio, SSS president and chief executive officer Emilio de Quiros said the new loan condonation program is different from previous penalty condonation programs in that its terms and requirements will depend on the type or situation of the delinquent member-borrower.

"For example, situation 1-A is for members whose employers collected but did not remit the loan amortizations to SSS, while 1-B covers beneficiaries of deceased members with outstanding loans who will file the death claim within the availment period of April 2, 2012 to March 31, 2013," he explained.

Situation 2, he said, is when the member-borrower has paid at least three amortizations since the loan take-out and a minimum of three months contributions within the last six months prior to the month of their application to the program.

Meanwhile, situation 3 is for member-borrowers who will file total disability or retirement claims from April 2 to Sept. 30, 2012, he added.

De Quiros noted that as of June 6, a total of 39,210 members bearing close to P500 million in delinquent loans have applied for condonation of loan penalties.

In Western Visayas, De Quiros said a total of 1,073 members applied for condonation as of May 15, this year.

The delinquent loans in the region totaled to P17.4 million, of which, P7.78 million are condonable penalties.

De Quiros advised member-borrowers to apply online through their website, "as long as they are already registered users and no longer have to submit supporting documents as proof of contribution payments."

However, member-borrowers who fall under situations 1A, 1B and 3 must still submit their application forms and other required documents to their servicing SSS branch.

UNIFIED IDENTIFICATION CARD (UMID)

Meanwhile, De Quiros disclosed that the SSS has so far issued over 700,000 Unified Identification Cards but admitted that they still have a production backlog of about 540,000.

"We target to normalize the production of UMID card by the end of the year," he said.

"Thus, we enjoin members to apply for their UMID cards starting November 2012 because by then, members can expect their IDs to be ready for mailing within 10 working days from the date of the application," he added.

The UMID card is an inter-agency project between the SSS, GSIS and PhilHealth. It can be used by members in any of their transactions with the three insurers.

It is not only low-cost but security-proof for it contains common data and biometrics of the members.

CANCELLED PENSIONS

Meanwhile, a total of 584 pension accounts were cancelled nationwide following SSS' intensified annual confirmation of pensioners program or ACOP.

The cancellations were due to pensioners discovered to be deceased, re-married, re-employed or recovered from their disabilities.

"Thanks to ACOP, the SSS has recovered some P1.55 million in cancelled pensions," he concluded.

SSS has 2.15 million members in Western Visayas Division, with the following brances: Bacolod, Bago, Bais, Dumaguete, Kabankalan, Sagay, San Carlos, Victorias, Iloilo and Roxas and in the towns of Kalibo (Aklan) and San Jose (Antique).*