A reel on Facebook (FB) is erroneously claiming that people 40 years old and above can now claim a monthly pension from the Social Security System. This is not true.
Published on July 4 and still gaining traction this week, the video has this superimposed text: “[G]ood news sa lahat ng may SSS”.
The 15-second reel showed a screenshot of a YouTube video published in March with this untrue headline:
“GOOD NEWS AGE 40 PATAAS PWEDE NA MAGPENSYON WOW PINAKAMALAKING BANGKO SA PILIPINAS [President Ferdinand Marcos] BINUBUO NA!”
The optional retirement age for both private sector and government employees is 60 years old.
The early retirees can avail themselves of a pension provided they have contributed the required amount over a certain period or have been employed for a minimum number of years.
Last January, the House of Representatives passed a bill lowering the optional retirement age of government workers to 56 years. The Senate has not passed a counterpart bill.
Published by a channel called PweDielie TV (created on April 12, 2015), the headline in the YouTube video is a clickbait. The claim was never mentioned throughout the entire 25-minute run of the video.
The erring YouTube channel carried a March 28 press briefing by Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno on the military and uniformed personnel (MUP) pension reform and the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBM) and Land Bank merger.
There was no mention of lowering the optional retirement age during the briefing. Instead, Diokno talked about the overhaul of the MUP pension system, proposing that new and active military men should contribute their fair share.
The false FB reel also included a photo of Marcos taken from a March 28 video of a meeting on the proposed DBM and Land Bank merger, which was published by the official YouTube channel of RTVMalacanang.
This short video spread after a House lawmaker proposed a pension system specifically for overseas Filipino workers.
The FB netizen’s reel has garnered over 30,600 reactions, 5,200 comments, 23,000 shares and 2.1 million views.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
