Mang Dencio's annual report.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Michael L. Tan

SOME readers might remember Mang Dencio, who was my father's driver for many years until one day in 1998, a stroke sent him into early retirement. He was only 58 then. I wrote about him a year after his stroke, describing his trials and tribulations as he went through the bureaucratic maze to get his SSS disability benefits. The response was immediate, kind people at the Social Security System calling in to help out with his papers.

Mang Dencio kept in touch, usually visiting around Christmas to ask about my parents, and their dogs, and cats, and to tell me how he's doing. I thought I should share his latest "annual report" because Mang Dencio is, in many ways, the Juan de la Cruz we rarely hear about, probably one of those who would have expressed, as 90 percent of respondents did in the Social Weather Stations' latest survey, hope and optimism for the new year.

Usually the first thing I ask Mang Dencio about are his disability payments. I have a special interest here because several years back, I told my parents I would start paying SSS and Medicare (now Philhealth) for Mang Dencio as well as their household helpers. The idea seemed strange then, many people thinking then (and now) that it's a waste to make contributions to SSS for household staff.

I had Mang Dencio on SSS and Philhealth for only about five years before he had his stroke but because of those payments we were able to reimburse some of his hospital expenses and apply for his disability pay. Unfortunately, he is apparently not entitled to pension payments because he had fewer than 10 years on his SSS. His wife had wisely enrolled herself in the SSS as a self-employed person for more than 10 years, and is now getting a monthly check of about a thousand pesos. "Maliit" (small), Mang Dencio says about the pension, but, "OK lang", it does help.

Mang Dencio's disability payments of about P1,500 a month have stopped because the SSS eventually gave him a lump sum, which he described as "malaki" (big). "Big" was of course relative, amounting to P28,000, a huge sum indeed for Mang Dencio and his wife. They used the money to add two rooms to their home and buy a refrigerator to stock soft drinks to sell. Rent on the two rooms at P1,500 each, their "sari-sari store," and his wife's SSS pension check bring an average of about P4,500 a month. OK lang, he says, enough to live by, including his medicines for his blood pressure.