SSS, UP team up for better social protection

MANILA, Philippines — State-run pension fund Social Security System (SSS) has partnered with the University of the Philippines (UP) to provide social protection among contractual university workers.

SSS and UP recently inked a memorandum of agreement that would extend social security benefits to all university workers regardless of their employment status.

Through the KaSSSangga Collect program, contract of service (COS) and job order (JO) personnel may now authorize UP to collect and remit their membership contributions to SSS.

JOs are hired for just a short duration of not more than six months and workers are paid either on a daily or hourly basis. JOs usually perform special or technical skills that are not available in a certain agency.

COS, on the other hand, are workers that also undertake specific jobs but for a longer period of at least one year.

UP president Angelo Jimenez said the university aims to use its resources to alleviate some of workers’ worries on social security protection during emergencies and for their retirement.

As state workers, UP employees are compulsory members of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

However, GSIS does not extend membership coverage to COS and JO contractual workers who have no employer-employee relationship with the university.

SSS proposed the alternative arrangement for personnel in government who are not covered by GSIS in 2022.

As such, COS and JO government workers were provided the option to enroll themselves in social security programs such as the SSS, Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and Pag-IBIG Fund as self-employed members.