TNAG-0531-FCO40-626-Application-of-International-Labour-Convention-to-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 197

175 -

Salary-educational loans

The SSS is quite liberal in the grant of this type of loan to its members. With interest at 5 per cent per annum, this loa n helps SSS members ease their temporary problems of liquidity

of liquidity especially

especially during the opening of school classes instead of shunting them off to the informal sources of loans which could only be obtained at very high interest rates.

Housing loans

There is a strong clamour of members for more credit facilities from the SSS. This has come about historically because the establishment of the SSS was met with resistance from the employees and employers who did not foresee the benefits that would accrue to them as the contingencies contemplated in the Law arise. Due to the wisdom of the legislature that drafted the Social Security Act, a provision was made allowing the SSS to invest its funds in direct housing loans to covered employees giving priority to the low-income groups payable over a long period and at low interest rates. The difference between the borrowing rates at the SSS and the market rate constitutes a subsidy to the members and it is in this area of investment that the SSS has played a critical contribution to the domestic capital formation for housing.

Administration

The Social Security System was created by the Charter as the administrative machinery to carry out the efficient and effective implementation of the social security programme.

The SSS is directed and controlled by the Social Security Commission as its policy-making body. The administration of the affairs of the System and the direct implementation of the social security programme in accordance with the objectives of the Social Security Law and the policies of the Commission is vested in the Administrator as the Chief Executive Officer.

The organisational structure of the SSS provides for a number of departments, each of

which is charged with specific functions and responsibilities to carry out the various activities essential to the attainment of the goals

and objectives cf the organisation.

The Social Security Commission is composed of a Chairman, the Administrator as its Vice-Chairman, and two representatives each for labour, management and the general public. With this composition of the policy-making body of the SSS, the interests of the various groups of people directly involved in the social security programme namely the labour force, the employers and the general public are thus adequately represented and protected.

-

-

This

in the

In the over-all structure of the Government, the SSS is one of the offices directly under the supervision and control of the Office of the President. readily indicates the importance of the social security programme Government's organisational structure. Under the General Reorganisation Act, the SSS, together with the other government financial institutions (the Central Bank, Development Bank, Philippine National Bank and the Government Service Insurance System) has been attached to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) in So far as investment policies are concerned, to ensure a more effective co- ordination on the investment and fiscal planning among these financial institutions, so essential for the realisation of the social and economic development programme of the Government.

as

To accelerate the administration of the social security programme, the Sss early as 1967 decentralised its operations by organising ten regional offices with sub-offices in each province. These regional and provincial offices provide the members ready access to the SSS and assure them of fast, on-the-spot services. As a result of the decentralisation of operations the SSS has accelerated the coverage of wage earners and their employers throughout the country. It also enabled the SSS to expedite the settlement of claims and the grant of service loans in the form of salary, educational and housing loans, as well as community hospital loans for the construction of hospitals with adequate medical equipment, particularly in rural areas sadly lacking in these modern facilities. The community hospital programme of the SSS has in fact paved the way for the smooth and speedy implementation of the medicare programme, which was subsequently enacted.

E-1195-2J:5