Informal sector put P167M into SSS

Informal sector workers—including farmers, fishermen, market vendors, tricycle and jeepney drivers, and even prison detainees—total only a little over 122,380 or 0.395 percent of the 31 million-plus members of the state-run Social Security System (SSS).

But they have already given more than P167 million in SSS contributions through the institution’s AlkanSSSya program, launched by the Aquino administration in 2011, according to Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, an ex-officio member of the SSS board of trustees.

In a statement, the head of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) disclosed that in December 2014, the program had already covered 122,387 members from 1,236 informal sector groups.

Baldoz said a significant development was seen when the total AlkanSSSya coverage reached 63,758 new members in 2014, from 673 groups contributing P66.2 million, accounting for 40 percent of the cumulative total collections for the year.

OFW social security

She said the government has sought wider coverage of social security benefits for informal sector workers through the program in accordance with the challenge of limited coverage of vulnerable occupations in social protection.

She said the SSS has intensified its efforts to give social security protection of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

“As of end-2014, the number of OFWs registered with the SSS totaled over 1.03 million, 11.4 percent higher than the number of migrant workers registered in 2013, and the third time in a row that the sector posted a two-digit growth rate,” she said.

Under the administration, the growth of SSS-registered OFWs surpassed that of OFWs deployed abroad, according to Baldoz.

She also reported that the agency has done its share in helping the SSS in its collection efficiency program by ensuring that employers [in the private sector] “judiciously remit their premium shares” to the SSS.

“We are cooperating with the SSS by sharing our respective databases under a memorandum of agreement (MOA), which I signed before the end of 2015,” she said.

The MOA “seeks to improve employers’ compliance with its obligation to enrol their workers for coverage and to remit their contributions. It provides that the DOLE shall endorse to SSS noncompliant employers for appropriate action.”