OVERSEAS Filipino workers (OFW) may have to suffer fewer job opportunities abroad in exchange for their new additional benefits from the Social Security System (SSS).
Migrant advocates and the recruitment industry issued the warning as the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the Social Security Act (SSA) of 2018 finally took effect on Monday.
SSS membership for the estimated over 380,000 Filipino seafarers abroad was not mandatory prior to the SSA.
“It is the right thing to provide social protection [to our OFWs], but not at the expense of their competitiveness,” Blas F. Ople Policy Center head Susan Ople said in a joint press conference.
This, the Joint Manning Group (JMG) said, is especially true for Filipino seafarers as their foreign employers would now have to pay more for their SSS premium.
Citing the computation of the International Maritime Association of Japan (IMAJ), JMG Vice Chairman Eric Marquez said it would cost Japanese employers an additional $4 million to pay for the SSS premiums of the Filipino crew of Japanese sea vessels in 2019 alone. He said this will reach $25.5 million by 2025.
“This is just for the vessels under the Japanese. If we add the cost of those under the European and other country’s fleet, we may be putting ourselves in a situation wherein Filipinos will no longer be competitive as compared to other countries competing for these slots aboard the ships,” Marquez said.
Supreme Court case
JMG also opposed how the SSA allegedly wrongfully proclaimed them as the principal of the seafarers, even though they only serve as third-party service providers.
“The real employers of the seafarers, following the law’s own definition, are the foreign shipowners,” JMG Chairman Oscar Obreta said.
Furthermore, Obreta said the government violated their right to equal protection when it implemented a separate policy for sea-based manning and its counterpart land-based recruitment agencies.
He said these unfair policies include the following provisions: manning agencies are burdened with “joint and several” liability for acts covered by the law; bilateral agreements for the benefit of land-based OFWs were not applied to sea-based OFWs; land-based OFWs are considered self-employed, while sea-based ones are considered employed by manning agencies.
Finally, Obreta said the SSA is “unconstitutional” for impairing the provisions of their two-year collective bargaining agreements entered into in January 2019.
JMG filed a petition for Certiorari before the Supreme Court on Monday, citing these reasons in an attempt to defer the implementation for the SSA.
The Associated Marine Officers’ and Seamen’s Union of the Philippines (Amosup) Executive Vice President Eduardo Santos agreed with JMG’s effort to delay the implementation of SSA.
“Our suggestion is to defer the implementation [of the new policy] since it will be difficult to enforce as far as the administrative factor is concerned,” Santos said.
Deployment complication
Land-based OFWs, however, are also against the provision of the SSA for making SSS premium payments a requirement for the issuance of overseas employment certificate. An OEC is a mandatory document issued by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to allow Filipinos to work abroad.
Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc. (Pasei) Vice President Raquel Bracero said they are against the policy especially for newly hired OFWs since they will be made to shell out funds for their SSS coverage even before they could start their work abroad.
In a text message to the BusinessMirror, POEA Administrator Bernard P. Olalia said they will not be implementing the “no payment, no OEC” policy for now even with the implementation of SSA IRR.
He said the POEA executives will be meeting on June 29 to discuss how to implement the said policy.
“The SSS topic is one of the issues that will be taken up in the POEA directorate meeting,” Olalia said.
Remedial measure
Blas F. Ople Policy Center, JMG, Pasei and other stakeholders renewed their appeal for the government to defer the mandatory premium collection until all of the issues they raised are addressed.
Ople directed their appeal to President Duterte, to the Social Security Board, and lawmakers. “We also plan to reach out to the chairperson of the Senate and the House committee on health for the SSS Law for what we deemed urgent and necessary amendment to the law. This will be the path we will take,” Ople said.
If their appeal is left unheeded, she said they will also be considering filing more cases against the SSA before the courts.
Image credits: Nonoy Lacza