SSS taps Antique cooperatives for members’ contribution, loan payments

ANTIQUE – The Social Security System (SSS) said that over 8,000 SSS members can now pay their monthly contributions through their respective cooperatives after SSS signed partnership deals with two additional cooperatives in the province of Antique.

SSS President and Chief Executive Officer Rolando Ledesma Macasaet said that SSS inked an agreement with Belison and Hamtic Multi-Purpose Cooperatives (MPC) on July 9 that will allow them to accept contribution payments and facilitate the online transactions of their members who are also SSS members.

Under the SSS Accreditation Program for Cooperatives, Macasaet said that authorized cooperatives can collect and remit the SSS and Employees’ Compensation (EC) contributions, adding that “their members can also pay their monthly loan amortizations through this arrangement.”

“Establishing durable partnerships with cooperatives is crucial in securing the active SSS membership of our members as well as in fulfilling member-borrowers’ responsibility to pay their monthly amortizations regularly,” Macasaet said.

Aside from being SSS collection partners, they are also authorized to facilitate selected SSS transactions such as membership and My.SSS registrations, disbursement account enrollment, and online submission of benefit and loan applications.

“In providing such assistance to its members, the cooperatives may claim a service fee of P6.00 from SSS for every processed and approved transaction,” Macasaet added.

He also shared that more than 2,000 co-op members who do not have SSS membership will be registered as SSS members as part of the agreement.

Through the Antique-based cooperatives, he said SSS could ensure the social security protection of their members, primarily farmers, fisherfolks, government employees, and businessmen.

“It will give their members a more convenient way of conducting SSS transactions through Hamtic and Belison MPC. It will also help them save money because they no longer have to visit SSS Antique, which is approximately 8 to 16 kilometers away from their towns, for their SSS transactions,” Macasaet said.

Macasaet added that aside from Hamtic and Belison MPC, there are five existing partner cooperatives in Antique: DAO MPC, Barbaza MPC, Patnongon MPC, Pandan MPC, and Libertad MPC.

Moreover, Macasaet and other SSS top officials also met with over 100 employers, barangay officials, self-employed members, and local media practitioners in a Stakeholder’s Forum held at the Eagles Place Hotel and discussed the value of SSS membership and updates on its programs and services.

Also present during the forum were Antique District Representative Antonio B. Legarda Jr. and Senator Loren B. Legarda who pledged to subsidize the one-month SSS contributions of nearly 4,720 barangay officials of Antique amounting to P2.6 million.