FINANCE Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III is urging the department headed by Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III to use digital technology in building a database and payout system for the country’s labor force.
The chief of the Department of Finance (DOF) said the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) can learn from, and build on the success, of the automated Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) program.
The program was implemented by the DOF, its attached agency the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Social Security System (SSS) after the Duterte administration imposed lockdown measures last year. The program aimed “to quickly deliver wage subsidies to more than three million employees with zero face-to-face contact with these beneficiaries.”
“The program is instructive. It shows the potential of building databases and building payout systems in helping us improve our resiliency in the face of calamities—whether these come in the form of pandemics or severe weather events,” Dominguez said during an event commemorating the labor department’s 88th anniversary.
“With the completion of the National ID system, we should see the digitalization of government services and private sector transactions advance by leaps and bounds,” Dominguez added.
The DOF chief thanked the DOLE “for being on the frontlines during the most difficult months of the pandemic, conserving jobs and fostering employment growth.’
“As we accelerate our recovery, I urge you to intensify your programs to help our workers cope with the pandemic and prepare them for the new labor demands of the digital economy,” Dominguez said.
Following the pandemic, the Finance secretary said they are “working hard to provide job opportunities and eventually absorb our laid-off workers into the economy in the shortest possible time.”
“We are taking a proactive stance on the procurement of more vaccines for booster shots next year as well as for inoculating our children. We are determined to roll back this pandemic for good,” Dominguez said.
“As our massive vaccination program unfolds, we should be better able to contain outbreaks in infections even as new variants of this virus emerge. As we transform our mindset from fighting a pandemic to managing an endemic virus, we should be able to restore the vigor of our economy in due time,” he added.