TNAG-0531-FCO40-626-Application-of-International-Labour-Convention-to-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 215

#

- 193

-

careful planning and integration within the national development plan of a country. It was, however, noted that in Asian countries some degree of improvement in the planning structure itself was necessary in terms of both staff and techniques, if social security should be integrated in the national planning.

The seminar attached great importance to various educational activities for the purpose of social security planning and development through its inclusion in the curriculum of higher educational institutions, as well as through workers' education and management development programmes. It would be extremely important that the public should have a correct idea of what social security was and what it could provide for thea; otherwise people would come to expect the near impossible from social security.

The seminar again took up questions of social security protection for the rural population, and noted that there could hardly be a single model method which might be applied universally. It was also indicated that spontaneous efforts of rural people themselves would pave the way for the application of meaningful social security measures and such efforts should be encouraged by the various parties concerned, including public authorities. For the coverage by social security of tae people in the rural sector who were not in an employment relationship, one starting point would be to examine the way in which public administration machinery worked vis-a-vis other social programmes in the rural area.

8.

The Philippine Social Security System and national development (working paper prepared by the Social Security System of the Philippines)

This working paper was presented by the Acting Administrator of the Social Security System, Mr. Reynaldo J. Gregorio, who also participated in the discussions, together with senior officials of the System responsible for different departments, such as benefits, contribution collection, legal questions and financial affairs.

The seminar discussed many different aspects of the Philippine social security legislation and operation. The topics dealt with by the seminar in its discussion on the working paper included the following: questions relating to the application of the law, notably insurability, coverage of employees changing their jobs or transmigrating among different islands; matters relating to the entitlement to benefits, including qualifying conditions; and machinery dealing with appeals. Keen interest was shown by many participants in the difficulties experienced at the early stages of the System's implementation and the solutions adopted by it to overcome them; in this connection the seminar noted the importance attached to the efforts to

make the scheme popular among the parties concerned. The technical cc- operation extended by the ILO to the country for the planning and actual implementation of the scheme was also assessed by the seminar, The country's experience in the employment of social security funds drew the special attention of the participants. The role played by the Social Security System in the implementa- tion of the Government's monetary policy was also discussed. The seminar then dealt with the question of inflation and its impacts on social security, with particular reference to the Philippine experience.

General and concluding discussions

The last two

sessions of the seminar were devoted to free discussions among participants and officials. Such discussions covered a number of important topics which had already been dealt with by the seminar at the preceding sessions as well as those newly raised by participants. They included the relationship between social security benefits and the general level of wages in a given country and the guiding principles on this particular question, prescribed in Convention No. 102 and in recently adopted Conventions on different social security benefits. participants showed keen interest in the international definition of the term "social security", and discussed it in the light of such international standards as Convention No. 102 and Recommendations Nos. 67 and 69. Questions of flexibility among provisions in the international labour Conventions concerning social security were also a subject of discussions among participants, who also exchanged their views on the effectiveness of such standards.

Some

E-1195-2K:5