“As we try to cope with rising prices of goods, the prevalence of financial scams and predatory loaning, such programs could be a big help to employees,” House Committee on Labor and Employmen Chairman Juan Fidel Felipe F. Nograles said. He expressed hopes fellow lawmakers “will recognize the need for this measure and pass it.”
Nograles’s committee has recently approved and consolidated various bills (House Bills 1633, 4389 and 4752) that would mandate employers to provide financial literacy and entrepreneurship programs to their workers.
The financial literacy programs would include behavioral finance, savings, emergency resilience fund development, debt management, investment, insurance and retirement planning.
The lawmaker emphasized the importance of financial literacy and an entrepreneurial mindset, as he touted that the measure would also provide a platform for aspiring and deserving employee-entrepreneurs to avail of grants or loans to fund their enterprise.
“Financial literacy will help them identify areas that they can tap to stabilize and improve their family’s finances and avoid crippling debt,” Nograles said.
The lawmaker’s view echoes Republic Act 10922, which lapsed into law on July 22, 2016, without the signature of President Benigno S. Aquino 3rd.
In it, the “state recognizes the growth potential of the country through a financially-literate people who make sound financial decisions, mobilize savings and contribute ideas on improving economic and financial policies and programs.”
The law mandated the Philippine Economic Society “to plan, initiate and encourage knowledge-expanding activities [during the “Economic and FInancial Literacy Week” in November of every year] on economic and financial literacy, which may be adopted by the private sector and civil society in their respective offices.”