The small Social Security System office located on the second floor of the consulate office in Toronto deserves a more spacious and comfortable room and additional personnel to attend to the needs of its clients, primarily seniors getting their pensions.
A one-woman staff is not enough to deal with these clients, who, while waiting for their turns to be called by the SSS representative to attend to their needs, have to file a line-up, standing alongside the office wall.
Why not set up a long bench to let these people take their seats while waiting for their appointments?
Observe those going there, mostly seniors who bring with them concerns and issues as shown in the SSS Booking Guide like the filing for” Benefit Claim Application DISABILITY, RETIREMENT, DEATH, FUNERAL & Annual Confirmation of Pensioners (ACOP) Compliance; Member Data Change Request (complex)and Pensioner Data Change Request. For inquiries on how to reactivate your membership, retrieval of forgotten SS number and request for records, please email us at toronto@sss.gov.ph “.
With only one staff member doing all these works, it’s getting to the nerves of the one handling these cases. I would not say more except to go to her office and observe how she has dealt with her clients. I can’t blame her; there’s so much work and many problems.
It’s well-known that the SSS has billions of pesos in investments and assets that have benefited SSS members for years.
If so, please improve the branch’s services and facilities in Toronto, add more personnel, and make the appointment schedule more client-friendly.
Here’s the typical way to book an appointment in the SSS branch. You will surely not be entertained if you go there without a scheduled appointment. You can only get a verbal direction to scan the code, fill in the blanks there, or go online early in the morning before seven and in 15 minutes; if you’re lucky enough, you can book the date and time of your appointment.
When the booking gets 24 clients’ slots, that would be enough for the day, and the same process will start similarly the following day.
Based on my experience, I had to wake up early on March 5 and be at my computer before 6 a.m. When the clock struck 6, I began tinkering with my laptop for my new bookings, tinkering there and here. Still, there was no movement on my computer. Two minutes before the 15-minute deadline, I got in and finally booked myself for the March 12 appointment at 9:45.
But on the day I was there, we had been told we could call the office between 4 and 7 in the afternoon if we wanted to make bookings instead of going online. At home, we tried calling the SSS office several times but could not get through; the phone was always busy.
So, I remember the last time I was at the Toronto office when an older woman entered and asked if she could make a booking. She was told outright to go online or make a call. But the woman said she had difficulty making an appointment via telephone because it was always busy. The woman just left the office looking so frustrated.
A few days ago, I used the SSS online bookings and got a March 4 and a nine a.m. appointment, so I assumed the SSS Toronto office got a transmittal of my online bookings. When I came to the office, to my dismay, the office had no record of my bookings.
So I left the office, thinking the best way I could do was to re-book that appointment now using the Toronto Online bookings.
To get some info about these bookings, I was handed this little piece of paper with some notes on how to do the bookings. To my surprise, the paper used was just a cut-up from a paper that had been used before. Imagine a multi-billion SSS that cannot even afford to print a decent brochure for bookings for its clients.
Imagine how busy the office is on an ordinary day; maybe three people are already inside the small office waiting for their turn to be called in. At one time, I saw this 85-year-old woman in a wheelchair, accompanied by her senior children, trying to fix the supposed pension of their dead father. Their mother could not even sign the documents; she could only thumb-mark them down. Her children had difficulty finding the records of their dead Dad.
Well, my readers, don’t you think we SSS seniors and pensioners deserve better treatment, considering the contributions we have made to support this esteemed institution that exists for its members’ benefits?
