(SOLIAR)—Four lectures on statutory employee benefits were conducted at the School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SOLAIR) from February to March. Sponsored by the IR 217 class under Dr. Virgel C. Binghay, the fora featured benefits administered and regulated by government institutions, among them the Social Security System (SSS), Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Pag-IBIG Fund, National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation (NHMFC) and Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth).
Statutory benefits are sometimes referred to as “employer-paid” benefits. In addition to an employee’s salary, wages and other monetary and non-monetary incentives, the government and the law require employers to provide certain benefits that would afford workers security whether or not they are currently employed by them. Some of these benefits are health care, retirement funds and housing loans which employees and employers may or may not share parts of the contributions.
Statutory benefits also demonstrate how the three actors of industrial relations, namely: management/employer, workers and the state/government agencies, interact and negotiate with one another within their environment bounded by rules which they themselves conceived and agreed upon.
The lecture series opened Feb. 6 with a talk by Josephine Mines, a communications analyst from the SSS and a UP-SOLAIR alumna, on the services and benefits the SSS offers its members. Mines expounded on the eligibility and amounts offered per benefit, as well as the necessary documents needed by members to process the claims. She also discussed the current state of the SSS, noting the organization’s good performance and the state of its funds, thus assuring SSS members in the audience that their benefits are secure.
The SSS is mandated to promote social justice and provide meaningful protection to members and their families against the hazards of disability, sickness, maternity, old age, death and other contingencies resulting in loss of income or financial burden. SSS provides its services to employees of private companies, as well to self-employed and voluntarily members.
The following week featured William Peñamora, GSIS Staff Officer, who discussed the benefits members of GSIS are entitled to. According to Peñamora, GSIS members have even more incentives to look forward to when they retire than those covered by the SSS. In addition, GSIS boasts that its longer existence in the business makes it a more stable and trusted social security and insurance company.
Cecille E. Maulion of Employee’s Compensation Commission was the best speaker to cover and wrap up the talk on social service and insurances. The basic idea behind the Employer’s Compensation Program (ECP) is to provide just compensation to the worker in the event of work-connected disability or to his beneficiary, in case of work-connected death. Hence, the Employer’s Compensation Commission (ECC) is tasked to provide occupationally disabled workers and their dependents prompt, meaningful and adequate benefits and services as compensation for employment related contingencies.
Maulion discussed the work-related diseases/disorder/ injuries covered by the ECP. A sickness is considered work-connected if it is in the ECC list of Occupational Diseases and if the conditions for its compensability are met. All workers in the formal sector enjoying employer-employee relationship are covered by the ECP. In the government sector, these are the employees who are registered member of the GSIS, including members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, elected government officials who are receiving a regular salary, and all casual emergencies, temporary and substitute contractual employees.
Pag-IBIG is an acronym which stands for Pagtutulungan sa Kinabukasan: Ikaw, Bangko, Industria at Gobyerno, with the following services: savings, dividends, housing loans, short-term loans (MPL, calamity and other benefit programs), portability of membership, return of contributions and death benefits. Pag-IBIG also offers its members an opportunity to double or triple their money to increase their contributions in the Total Accumulated Value (TAV). At least 70 percent of the fund’s annual net income is set aside for the dividends and these dividends are accredited to the person’s TAV.
During the forum with the representative from Pag-IBIG, the participants also learned that members have actually an option to withdraw their TAV on the fifteenth year of continuous membership provided that they have no outstanding loan at the time of withdrawal. However, this privilege is strictly applicable only on the 15th year of membership.
Another speaker from Pag-IBIG, Florianne Jacinto, discussed the housing loan. A Pag-IBIG housing loan may be used to finance any of the following: purchase of a fully developed lot within a residential area not exceeding 1,000 sq.m.; not less than 32 sq. m.; purchase of a residential house and lot, townhouse or condominium unit; construction or completion of a residential unit on a lot owned by the member; home improvement; or refinancing of an existing loan.
The NHMFC is another major home mortgage institution. Its initial main function is to operate a viable secondary home mortgage market, utilizing long-term funds principally provided by the SSS, GSIS, and the Home Mutual Development Fund to purchase mortgages originated by both public and private institutions that are within government approved guidelines. It is also mandated to develop a system that will attract private institutional funds into long-term housing mortgages.
Atty. Daniel Lacueta, VP for Corporate Services Group of NHMFC and also A UP-SOLAIR alumnus, discussed the structure of the Philippines’ housing sector and as he stressed on the fact that NHMFC serves as the financial arm / source in the housing sector.
Last in the series of forum on statutory employee benefits was a talk by Angelito Grande, CESO III, on PhilHealth benefits.
PhilHealth members are entitled to Inpatient/hospitalization benefits, outpatient benefits and special packages. Hospitalization benefits that can be availed of include room and board fees, drugs and medicines, x-ray, laboratory and others, doctor’s professional fees, operating room fees and surgeon and anaesthesiologist’s fees. These inpatient benefits have maximum allowances or ceilings that will be covered by PhilHealth for each single period of confinement and which must be deducted from the total hospital bill and professional fee upon discharge. For the outpatient benefits, employed members also have benefits for the outpatient cases like hemodialysis, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other minor surgical procedures done in a PhilHealth-accredited provider. Employed members can also avail special benefit packages such as coverage for normal spontaneous delivery, newborn care package, TB-DOTS package, cataract package, outpatient malaria package, SARS/Avian influenza package, package for voluntary surgical procedures and A (H1N1) package.
The forum series is a class requirement in IR 217 – Employee Benefits Programs under Dr. Virgel C. Binghay. Aside from it being an academic exercise, it aimed at enhancing workers’ awareness level of their rights particularly on statutory their benefits.