CLARK FREEPORT – The congressional bicameral conference committee has finally approved the 21-yearold charter of the Social Security System (SSS) which, if passed into law, would make overseas Filipino workers (OFW) as its mandatory members and provide unemployment insurance for SSS members who would be involuntarily laid off.
In a statement, SSS president and chief executive officer Emmanuel Dooc said that another salient feature of the approved proposal is the “rationalization of powers of the Social Security Commission, the policy-making body of the SSS, allowing it to expand the investing capacity of the pension fund that will generate better income for the benefit of its members and pensioners.”
“It also aims to strengthen the pension fund through the implementation of the gradual increase on monthly contributions from the current 11 percent to an additional of 1 percentage point starting on the year of implementation until it reaches 15 percent in 2025, and the gradual adjustment of the minimum and maximum monthly salary credit,” he said.
“Further, the bill, once enacted into law, will ensure the social security of the growing number of Filipinos outside the country as it provides for the mandatory SSS coverage of OFWs,” he added.
“Right now, despite the huge number of OFWs – some say there are about 10 million of them at present – we only cover about 550,000 of them. So this law will mandatorily cover all the OFWs to ensure their social security protection,” he noted.
He also noted that the bicam-approved version also provided the unemployment insurance for SSS members who would be displaced involuntarily.
“Under the proposed measure, displaced workers will get a financial assistance from SSS in the form of cash equivalent to half of their average monthly salary credit for two months,” Dooc said.
Dooc, however, reminds that there will be qualifications to be entitled to this benefit.
Sen. Richard Gordon, the principal author of SB 1753, earlier mentioned that the bill, if enacted into law, will expand, protect and grow the fund so there will be pension for all when the time of their retirement comes.
“The bill is an enhancement of the previous laws; it ensures hope that the people would not be a burden to the country; that they are partners of the government not by way of exaction of taxes but by their contribution so that their welfare is assured. The passage of the bill would expand, protect and increase the SSS fund so that when the time comes, there would be available pension for the people. It will ensure a more meaningful social security protection to members and their beneficiaries against the hazards of disability, sickness, maternity, old age, death, and other contingencies resulting in loss of income or financial burden,” Gordon said.
Dooc expressed his gratitude to the bicameral conference committee for “approving and adopting the almost unchanged Senate Bill 1753 or the Social Security Act of 2018.”
“I am thankful to the Senate and the House of Representatives contingents for their leadership, and for sponsoring and shepherding this bill. Hopefully, this will be signed by the President and become a law,” Dooc added.
