Atin Ito First Filipino Community Newspaper in Ontario
SEN. Rafael “Raffy” Tulfo expressed dismay over the low compliance by three government agencies in providing coverage for domestic workers.
Based on a 2019 joint survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) and Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE), there are 1.4 million registered domestic workers with the Social Security System (SSS), the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) and the Home Development Mutual Fund or Pag-IBIG.
Of these, only 6 percent or 84,190 kasambahay were enrolled by their employers in SSS, 5 percent or 74, 858 in PhilHealth and 3.4 percent or 51, 579 in Pag-IBIG.
“This is very low compliance,” said Tulfo, vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor.
The senator stressed that these agencies are not doing enough to ensure that employers in the country have registered and have been paying the SSS, PhilHealth, Pag-IBIG contributions of their kasambahay.
He was also upset due to the failure of barangay to implement the registration system for kasambahay, knowing that some employers are too busy to enroll their house help for said coverage or deliberately avoid doing so to avoid payments.
Notably, under the “Domestic Workers Act” or “Batas Kasambahay,” every employer shall register a house help under his/her employment in the barangay where his/her residence is located. The Punong Barangay shall be responsible for the Registry of kasambahay within his/her jurisdiction. — Javier Joe Ismael
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