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The Covid-19 pandemic didn’t stop us celebrating Mother’s Day last Sunday. Each one of us designed our own gimmick of giving special tribute to the most important woman in our lives—our mother. To show our love and appreciation, we prepared her favorite dish, freed her from all household chores for the day, gathered the whole family to watch her favorite K-Drama series, bought her favorite dessert or flowers (thanks to our Grab, foodpanda and Lalamove frontliners), spent long chats with her, viewed some photo slideshow of our bonding moments together, or simply gave her a sweet kiss and hug.
With all these sweet gestures, there’s this one significant thing that all mothers appreciate, and they will forever treasure this for the rest of their lives—TIME. Spending quality time with our mom is perhaps the most precious gift that we can give her for raising and nurturing us, her children, with unconditional love.
Juggling multiple tasks such as working on a daily job, aiming for career growth, managing the household, taking care of her husband, and raising her kids is not that easy. Same with the homemakers or most commonly known as “housewives.” They work more than eight hours a day in preparing and serving healthy and delicious meals for the family, keeping the household clean and tidy, as well as taking care of the family budget to manage all household expenses. But being a homemaker not only involves a woman working within a secured structure, it’s more of a lifelong devotion of keeping the family together, as well as raising and instilling the proper values in their children to become good and responsible citizens.
In reality, homemakers really don’t get paid for this “noble profession.” In fact, based on the preliminary results of the October 2016 Labor Force Survey [LFS] by the Philippine Statistics Authority,
female unemployment rate is 4.3 percent, which is equivalent to 727,000. However, some of the unemployed females reported by PSA are SSS voluntary members.
Special treats such as lunch or dinner dates, pamper time in salon and spa, or simply saying “thank you” are ways of giving back to our full-time homemakers. But seeing their importance in our lives, they deserve more than the temporary joys that we provide them daily. As the current head of the state-run pension fund, I believe that SSS membership is the best gift that we can give to our household Queens.
The coverage of Non-Working Spouse (NWS) started in 1995 where the legal spouse of an SSS member—whether employed, self-employed or overseas Filipino worker (OFW) who is currently paying SSS contributions, can be registered as SSS member. To qualify for this particular membership category, the legal spouse’s age should not be more than 60 years old. In these current times, it is not just confined to the female population, since some househusbands as they say (by circumstances) also stay at home to manage the household and the kids while the wife works.
Based on available data as of December 2019, there are more than 3,600 covered male and female Non-Working Spouses, 73 percent of whom paid their monthly premiums to SSS from January to December 2019, which is equivalent to over 2,600 members.
To register an individual under the NWS category, a duly accomplished Personal Record Form (SSS Form E1) should be submitted. In case the individual is already an SSS member and wants to change membership status to NWS, a Member Data Change Request Form (SSS Form E-4) should be filled-out. Since the working spouse is responsible in paying his wife’s or husband’s SSS contributions, the working spouse’s signature is needed to signify approval for the non-working spouse’s membership. Also, the marriage contract and government-issued IDs should be presented as supporting documents upon registration.
The monthly contributions of the non-working spouse is equivalent to 50 percent of the working spouse’s Monthly Salary Credit (MSC). If the working spouse is receiving the maximum monthly salary credit, 50 percent of it is P10,000, which is equivalent to P1,200 per month. Payments can be made either on a monthly or quarterly basis to any SSS Tellering Facilities, SSS-accredited partner banks and other payment partners. They can also pay online using SSS Mobile Application via PayMaya or through their My.SSS account via Moneygment once the Member Portal of the SSS web site is already available. To check whether SSS contributions were posted correctly, our NWS members may also personally check their contribution records via SSS Mobile Application or through the My.SSS account until further notice since the SSS web site is currently dedicated to the Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) Program.
SSS membership entitles one to six benefits, such as sickness, maternity, disability, retirement, death and funeral. Meanwhile, members are also entitled to avail themselves of various loan privileges such as salary, calamity, educational, and pension loan once qualified. In case the NWS has decided to change her career path and explore other avenues such as setting up a business or working in the corporate world, she can change her membership status to self-employed or covered employee. If the worst-case scenario happens wherein she was involuntarily separated from work, SSS also offers its seventh benefit, which is unemployment benefit that is equivalent to 50 percent of the member’s average monthly salary credit (AMSC) as cash assistance that a member will receive for two months.
Indeed, our dear homemakers deserve all the best in the world, and providing her social security protection is the perfect Mother’s Day gift that would certainly last for a lifetime.
Sa ating mga kababaihan, isang pagpupugay sa inyong lahat!
Aurora C. Ignacio is SSS president and chief executive officer.
We welcome your questions and insights on the topics that we discuss. E-mail mediaaffairs@sss.gov.ph for topics that you might want us to discuss.
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