Taking care of the oldies

A relative who had worked in the United States but decided to go back to Manila is living off her monthly social security pension.

- BOO CHANCO

She couldn’t live off that pension in the United States. How she manages to survive here with it, is a mystery to me.

The last time I checked my account, my monthly SSS pension has increased but it still barely covers the cost of my prescription maintenance medications. It will probably cover my annual abdominal ultrasound test.

This is why 15 years after I have officially retired from my main job, I still work. I feel so blessed by our Lord that He guided me to save some during my working years to cover the costs of getting old.

But most senior citizens in our country today are left with too little resources to cover the increasing costs of living. Essentially, the biggest worry for those in my generation is getting very sick and not being able to afford the cost of the pay-as-you-go system in our for-profit hospitals.

These morbid thoughts about the economic costs of aging were sparked by an article last week that declared the Philippine pension system as the third worst in the world. That's according to the 2025 edition of Mercer CFA Institute’s Global Pension Index.

Our grade improved to 47.1 in 2025 from 45.8 in 2024, way below the 64.5 global average. Last year, the Philippines’ pension system was also the third worst out of 48 systems.

And here’s the kicker: The Philippines was the only economy in the integrity sub-index that had an “E” grade, which indicates “a poor system that may be in the early stages of development or nonexistent.”