SSS Employees Say ‘No’ To Privatization

Bulatlat.com - The historic Don Chino Roces Bridge (formerly Mendiola Bridge) will be the site of a big rally on Monday (June 11, Manila time) by thousands of employees of the Social Security System (SSS) to dramatize their protest against its privatization.

Dr. Carol M. Basilio, president of the Alert and Concerned Employees for a Better SSS (ACCESS), yesterday said the employees will ask President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to stop the agency’s privatization and to sack SSS president and chief executive officer (CEO) Vitaliano Nañagas.

ACCESS has 4,000 members.

Joining the employees’ protest rally are the Confederation for the Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (COURAGE), the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU – May 1^st Movement), the multisectoral alliance center Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and other people’s organizations.

Basilio said that the SSS employees are determined to stop the agency’s privatization, aware that in privatizing government agencies and corporations such as the MWSS and Philippine National Bank, thousands of employees were laid off while others were forced to take leaves without pay.

“We don’t want to go through the same, and we will fight against it the best way we can,” Basilio said.

She added that ACCESS will unite and coordinate with other anti-privatization groups and labor organizations in their campaign not only against privatization but also against economic policies that result in mass lay-offs and higher rates of basic social services.

Basilio also said that under Nañagas, the employees’ worst fears were coming true.

“As a boss, Nañagas is every employee’s worst nightmare,” the ACCESS leader said. “He’s a double-talker, arrogant and has no respect for employees.”

The employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) were right in kicking Nañagas out in 1997, she said. The worse thing about the former SEC official, she added however, are his “lies” about the planned privatization of the SSS.

“He’s been trying to confuse the SSS employees as well as the rest of the Filipino public about the SSS privatization by denying it one moment and then admitting it the next,” Basilio said.

Meeting union officers last May 21, Nañagas admitted that there was indeed a plan to privatize the SSS particularly its fund management, information and technology management and asset and loans management. He had earlier denied about any privatization plan.

ACCESS members were to hold a motorcade yesterday morning (Saturday), passing by all SSS branches in Metro Manila.

Top officials of the SSS figured in a graft case against ousted president Joseph Estrada. While in power, the former president had the officials transfer millions worth of SSS assets in an alleged stocks manipulation that also earned for the president another case. As a result thousands of public schoolteachers – aside from other thousands of SSS beneficiaries – could not avail of emergency loans. Bulatlat.com