LAST Thursday the Philippines celebrated Labor Day, or “Araw ng mga Manggagawa,” when Filipino workers and workers’ unions remember their hard-fought workers’ rights. One such right, as enshrined in Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in Article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, is the right to social security. In fact, one of the mandates of the International Labor Organization (ILO) is the promotion and “extension of social-security measures to provide basic income to all in need of such protection and comprehensive medical care.” Hence, for many decades now, social-security systems around the world have played an integral role in development and poverty reduction.
However, it is only in recent years that the idea of a compulsory minimum level of noncontributory social protection has gained momentum. As reported by Dr. Magdalena Sepulveda, the United Nations Human Rights special reporter on extreme poverty, and her assistant Carly Nyst in “The Human Rights Approach to Social Protection” during the 2001 General Conference of the ILO, the agency “affirmed social security as a ‘basic human right’ and noted the importance of improving and extending social protection to all. The final resolution recommended that countries with limited resources prioritize pressing needs, and that they consider ways to address those living in the informal economy.”
Along these lines, the Social Security System (SSS) has intensified its efforts to reach out to self-employed workers in the informal sector who, oftentimes, find it difficult to comply with the administrative requirements of being SSS members. Through its AlkanSSSya (a play on the Filipino word for a coin-savings bank) program—which allows registered self-employed members of a workers’ association to save for their monthly contributions by depositing money into their coin-savings bank daily—the SSS has covered 53,605 informal-sector workers from 596 groups as of end-2013. (Please read my April 2 column on the AlkanSSSya program.)
Besides workers from the transportation sector (tricycle, tri-sikad and jeepney drivers), the SSS has also reached out to market vendors, farmers and fishermen, golf caddies, cottage-industry workers, waste-recovery workers and, very recently, job-order or contractual workers of government agencies.
The advantages offered by the AlkanSSSya program are primarily its affordability, convenience and sustainability. With as little as P12 a day, an informal-sector worker can easily save P312 for his or her monthly SSS contribution. Also, with the AlkanSSSya boxes in the association terminal or office, it is easier for the worker to deposit his or her daily savings. Finally, the sustainability of the program is premised on several factors: a fixed or continuing means of livelihood; an organization to handle administrative tasks; and community support to successfully change the attitudes of members toward the act of saving as something that is part of their normal routine or daily obligation.
In the extreme case that the worker has more pressing needs and cannot meet the monthly target amount, the association can contribute or pay the remaining amount by advancing or sharing that amount from among themselves. This is the embodiment of the Filipino concept of bayanihan, or community effort.
The program can also be sustained through synergy with local government units in helping organize informal-sector groups, funding the fabrication of their AlkanSSSya units, or helping informal-sector workers obtain identification documents needed for SSS registration.
Social insurance, such as what the SSS provides, helps protect workers from economic distress caused by unexpected circumstances. Thus, it is the state’s obligation to extend social protection to as many workers as possible.LAST Thursday the Philippines celebrated Labor Day, or “Araw ng mga Manggagawa,” when Filipino workers and workers’ unions remember their hard-fought workers’ rights. One such right, as enshrined in Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in Article 9 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, is the right to social security. In fact, one of the mandates of the International Labor Organization (ILO) is the promotion and “extension of social-security measures to provide basic income to all in need of such protection and comprehensive medical care.” Hence, for many decades now, social-security systems around the world have played an integral role in development and poverty reduction.
However, it is only in recent years that the idea of a compulsory minimum level of noncontributory social protection has gained momentum. As reported by Dr. Magdalena Sepulveda, the United Nations Human Rights special reporter on extreme poverty, and her assistant Carly Nyst in “The Human Rights Approach to Social Protection” during the 2001 General Conference of the ILO, the agency “affirmed social security as a ‘basic human right’ and noted the importance of improving and extending social protection to all. The final resolution recommended that countries with limited resources prioritize pressing needs, and that they consider ways to address those living in the informal economy.”
Along these lines, the Social Security System (SSS) has intensified its efforts to reach out to self-employed workers in the informal sector who, oftentimes, find it difficult to comply with the administrative requirements of being SSS members. Through its AlkanSSSya (a play on the Filipino word for a coin-savings bank) program—which allows registered self-employed members of a workers’ association to save for their monthly contributions by depositing money into their coin-savings bank daily—the SSS has covered 53,605 informal-sector workers from 596 groups as of end-2013. (Please read my April 2 column on the AlkanSSSya program.)
Besides workers from the transportation sector (tricycle, tri-sikad and jeepney drivers), the SSS has also reached out to market vendors, farmers and fishermen, golf caddies, cottage-industry workers, waste-recovery workers and, very recently, job-order or contractual workers of government agencies.
The advantages offered by the AlkanSSSya program are primarily its affordability, convenience and sustainability. With as little as P12 a day, an informal-sector worker can easily save P312 for his or her monthly SSS contribution. Also, with the AlkanSSSya boxes in the association terminal or office, it is easier for the worker to deposit his or her daily savings. Finally, the sustainability of the program is premised on several factors: a fixed or continuing means of livelihood; an organization to handle administrative tasks; and community support to successfully change the attitudes of members toward the act of saving as something that is part of their normal routine or daily obligation.
In the extreme case that the worker has more pressing needs and cannot meet the monthly target amount, the association can contribute or pay the remaining amount by advancing or sharing that amount from among themselves. This is the embodiment of the Filipino concept of bayanihan, or community effort.
The program can also be sustained through synergy with local government units in helping organize informal-sector groups, funding the fabrication of their AlkanSSSya units, or helping informal-sector workers obtain identification documents needed for SSS registration.
Social insurance, such as what the SSS provides, helps protect workers from economic distress caused by unexpected circumstances. Thus, it is the state’s obligation to extend social protection to as many workers as possible.