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Just how
protected are Filipinos from illness, unemployment or
old age?
If we’re
to believe Social Watch, an international nongovernment
watchdog network monitoring poverty eradication and
gender equality, the Philippines is among the countries
where social security leaves very much to be desired,
violating the right of people to live in dignity.
The
Social Watch 2007 Report points out that while the
Philippines has social security programs covering social
insurance, pensions and other forms of long-term
savings, social safety nets, welfare and social
payments, and labor market interventions, “coverage is
incomplete and delivery is diffused,” while “financing
remains uncertain and is vulnerable to corruption.”
The
Philippine social insurance program covers about 28.2
million workers, or 84.5 percent of the employed
population. But while it is paid for in part by the
poor, it tends to benefit the better-off who lives in
the urban areas, with social security services barely
reaching the poor workers.
The
program also suffers from other shortcomings: the value
of benefits is low compared to cost of premiums, and
contributing workers are sometimes unable to obtain
benefits when needed because of nonremittance or
underpayment by employers. Moreover, it does not include
unemployment insurance which serves to cushion against
temporary joblessness.
The
financial sustainability of the Social Security System
has also been put in doubt because of bad investments,
poor management, internal inefficiencies, high
administrative costs, corruption and unreasonably high
salaries and perks for top managers.
The
national health insurance program, run by the Philippine
Health Insurance Corp., or PhilHealth, gives Filipinos
access to health services in accredited medical
facilities nationwide. At present, PhilHealth has an
estimated 16.26 million members; or 68.4 million
beneficiaries, including indigents.
But the
health-insurance scheme does not necessarily deliver
good quality care at a low cost, partly because of poor
regulation of its purchasers.
As the
Medicare package is focused on hospital care, it tends
to benefit the health-care providers. It also highlights
wide inequities, with poor workers subsidizing well-off
employees and poor regions subsidizing Metro Manila.
Then there’s also the use of PhilHealth by politicians
who want to influence the outcomes of elections by
giving out free insurance cards to voters.
Those
outside the formal economy, such as the vendors, the
self-employed and home workers, comprise about 49
percent of the labor force, or 15.5 million people, have
little or no adequate social protection. Because these
workers operate outside the scope of regulations, they
seldom benefit from health and other social protection
programs.
There
are more than eight million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
They sent $10.7 billion in earnings back to their
families and friends in the Philippines in 2006,
equivalent to 12 percent of GDP. They contribute $25 to
OWWA every time they leave the country. While the agency
has collected this amount for 25 years now, it spends
over three times more for its personnel and operations
compared to the social benefits it gives out to overseas
Filipinos.
Its
welfare assistance to OFWs is too paltry and too
selective, leaving them virtually unprotected while
abroad and when they return home. OFW remittances serve
as social insurance for recipient households, shielding
them from hard times.
The
government social assistance program is coursed through
the Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social
Services. The projects are supposed to include water
systems, farm-to-market roads, post-harvest facilities,
school buildings, and health centers, centered in the
country’s 42 poorest provinces. But the number of
beneficiaries reached is limited, and the level of
benefits low. Worse, the Social Watch report claims, the
government does not know exactly who or where the poor
are, and is thus helpless in preventing leakages to the
nonpoor.
We share
the Social Watch view that the long-term solution to
poverty in the Philippines is robust, equitable and
broad-based sustainable economic growth. Despite marked
improvement of the Philippine economy in recent years,
there’s a lack of social mechanisms that could uplift
the living conditions of the poor and the marginalized.
Social
protection must go hand in hand with economic
development. An overhaul of the Social Security System
should include reforms in contribution and benefit
structures to remove inequities and expand coverage to
the informal sector, as well as tighter management of
social insurance funds.
As to
health insurance, the government ought to consider
merging the national programs with community-based
health-care financing schemes.
The
government must also put in place insurance and pension
plans for overseas workers, and push for bilateral
agreements to protect Filipino workers’ interests
abroad.
Social
protection for all Filipinos, the report emphasizes, is
possible considering that the money and know-how are
available. What is needed, as pointed out by former
national treasurer and Social Watch Philippines
coconvenor Leonor Briones, is for the government to give
social protection the attention it deserves. In short,
political will on the part of the national government is
an indispensable requirement for social protection to
work. |
