RA 10361, the Kasambahay Law, protects the thousands of Filipino household helpers who suffer substandard living conditions, ill treatment, and low wages from their amos (employers).
Mandatory SSS, PhilHealth and Pag-IBIG coverage is required for a kasambahay (household help) who has worked for at least one month with the amo. In addition, other mandatory requirements are: monthly minimum wage; daily rest period of a total of eight hours; weekly rest period of 24 uninterrupted hours; five days annual service incentive leave with pay, and 13th month pay.
At home, our househelp always eat with us, sharing the same food. Their wages are above the minimum required for the area, and they are given raises every year, and are provided their own comfortable, secure quarters with their own bathroom. They have liberal rest periods for breaks between chores, for siesta, or watching TV in their own quarters after lunch and supper.
Our upbringing taught us to regard our help as members of the family. They may not be professionals, but they render invaluable service we would be hard put without.
The Kasambahay Law intends to elevate them to the status of professionals. The pre-employment requirements for them are: the employee must be at least 15 years of age; must have medical certificate or health certificate issued by a local government health office; barangay and police clearance; NBI clearance, and authenticated birth certificate or, if not available, voter’s ID, baptismal record, or passport showing his or her age.
This means we must now have an official employment contract, the model yet to be developed by the Labor Department.
But typical of the government, even without that contract yet, it is already requiring and collecting SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG payments for the household help from their employers.
Based on the help’s monthly salary, the fees can be the employer’s sole responsibility, or are shared by the employer and the household help.
Anticipating the hassle and inconvenience of enrolling our househelp for membership in those agencies, I gave Inday an option of just receiving the cash equivalent of the fees each month as part of her wages, or actually signing up for membership. She chose the latter.
But where and how to start? There were no specific instructions in the media. I was on my own. I asked someone who had taken steps to enroll his household help in SSS. He said to get a form from the SSS office. But he never finished the process because of the large crowds at SSS, and he couldn’t afford to take time off from work. I suspect this would be the case with others who want to comply with the law.
Discouraged and determined to avoid the inconvenience, I told Inday that while I would pay the fees, she had to go and enroll herself at SSS and PhilHealth. And she should say she was “self-employed” rather than a “household helper”.
She was gone a long time at the SSS office (Daghan kaayong tawo!), and came back with a Self-Employed Record Form with a SSS membership number assigned to her, having put down sari-sari as her supposed business. She had to return to have her payments computed.
Blame my parents’ training, but I started feeling guilty about the duplicity, and imagined possible repercussions.
Eventually, I thought, the authorities might check out her “sari-sari business” for taxation or whatever purpose; one thing would lead to another, and poor Inday! So I decided to call off the charade, and do the right thing–accompany her myself.
It was just shortly after 8am when we arrived at the SSS office the next day, but the place was already packed. With no available seats in sight, there were several rows of people standing at the back waiting to be served. On the opposite side of the room were five desks with harried-looking staff behind them. But the guard at the door was friendly and helpful, and when I told him our problem, he said to just go to “Counter 5.” At least, we didn’t have to get in line.
The man behind “Counter 5” looked very harried, and seemed displeased when I explained that Inday had made a mistake by claiming self-employment when she was really a kasambahay, a “misunderstanding”, I explained (hah!) Mr. Grouchy instructed us to get the right form for household helpers, fill it out, and return to him.
We returned to the friendly guard who got us the correct form. Finding no counter or chair to sit on, I parked myself on the chair infront of the nearest desk (the man behind it must be used to that since he didn’t object), and filled out the forms on my lap with Inday supplying the needed information. There being no carbon paper, I had to fill out the forms three times (but of course, in triplicate, government na gud na!)
Done, we returned to Mr. Grouchy’s desk, and waited and waited and waited. People massed around his desk and continuously handed him papers, and he was attending to all sorts of problems (including forged signatures). But to our surprise, he seemed in better spirits and wasn’t as testy, and he even bantered with some people. I concluded he had had his coffee already.
After the long wait and after having taken time to fill out the new forms in triplicate, we finally got his attention. Then I got annoyed when he just X’d out the forms, and said that Inday did not need them after all since she had been assigned a SSS membership number already the day before (by him), and that was all that mattered. I bit my tongue, telling myelf: Calma lang, don’t antagonize him! That’s a prudent reminder when at the mercy of someone, in a government office especially.
Then he said for me to get an Employer’s Form to fill out, and return the same to him. So back we went to the friendly guard. Once again, I had to fill them out in triplicate on my lap. Then back again to Mr. Ex-Grouchy. Wait, wait, wait. He made some notations on the form, and gave them to a staff to be brought somewhere for the proper officer’s signature, and told us to wait again. Our name would be called when the form was signed.
So I told Inday to wait for that while I went to stand somewhere else to get away from the press of people. No seat in sight, so stand, stand, stand, wait, wait, wait till Inday finally appeared with the signed forms we were to take upstairs to have our payments computed.
In contrast, there was hardly anybody upstairs where there were some empty desks and one with a friendly, helpful lady behind it. She was glad that I was complying with the Kasambahay Law. After consulting the tables in her computer, she told me how much I was to pay.
Yikes! I had been too honest, and had given the actual date when Inday started working with me. That cost me P8000+ including penalties for not having enrolled her for benefits then. Yes, there was a law already in effect, but nobody was minding it. The Kasambahay Law is meant to fix that problem.
This retroactive requirement is an incentive not to comply, or to lie.
It’s understandable if most employers will lie about the date of employment of their help. Unless the help objects, there’s no way the government can know the truth.
I suggested to the lady that there’s a chance this retroactive feature of the law will be amended, so couldn’t the amount be computed just from the day we sign up? She said no. I asked that, if it will be amended, am I assured that I would be refunded, or the overpayment applied to future payments? She couldn’t say. (Their office has a quota to meet, after all.)
But OUCH, the price of honesty hurt! In addition to making me feel like a naive sucker, my budget for that month was drastically upset.
The lady assigned us number 178 as our turn to pay at the cashier’s window. Since number 50-something was just being processed there, and it was already close to 12 noon, we decided to go home for lunch. Inday returned in the afternoon to pay the cashier, and it took the whole afternoon to get everything done.
The next day was for PhilHealth. Unwilling to subject myself to the same tortuous process at SSS, I sent Inday to enroll herself at PhilHealth without me. This she was able to do easily because the process was simpler, and there was no crowd. She brought back the forms for me to sign, and took them back to PhilHealth the next day. She accomplished everything that day, bringing me a supply of forms to be used with each month’s payment. I thought it only proper that her coverage start when she signed up for PhilHealth benefits.
As for Pag-IBIG, I don’t care what the law says, but it should be an option. Let the government think what it may, but most household employers will skip this requirement, often by agreement with the household help who have no thought of being part of Pag-IBIG. What will the authorities do if we don’t pay this? Haul us to jail?
There’s still one more requirement I have to comply with: Registering the kasambahay with the barangay master list. Haay!
As of now, this is the score: On top of the kasambahay’s regular wages, I pay every month P270 to SSS and P175 to PhilHealth. It is my responsibility to inform these agencies as well as the barangay officials if my househelp quits, or I will be responsible for continuing the payments.
But what about that “contract” with the kasambahay that is still in the works? When will it be ready? And how strict will the government be in enforcing all its requirements in fairness to both amo and kasambahay?
There is no reason for amos to comply strictly with all the requirements of the K. Law if government cannot guarantee that the kasambahays will also comply with their own requirements. Who will see to it that the requirements are strictly met? And what happens when this is not done?
For the fact is, realistically, most amos cannot afford to give their household help all these required benefits, even the ethical-minded ones who want to do right.
What happens when they don’t–will they be fined, imprisoned, publicly shamed, property confiscated, etc? Are they just supposed to completely refrain from hiring household help? What happens to those housewives with individual careers who will have to look after their families and homes themselves? Abandon their careers? Unlike many women around the world, the Filipina is outstanding in being able to successfully juggle home and career because she has household support.
But what happens to those kasambahays who need employment? Are they just supposed to be sent home with their source of income cut off, whether they like it or not?
Whoever sponsored this law is not living in reality, the reality of majority of middle class Filipino households. The sponsors most probably belong to the topmost financial bracket who do not wrestle with the kind of daily concerns most of us have.
They certainly did not realize that implementing this law without much thought to its repercussions will disrupt our society, melodramatic as that may sound.
They may have meant well, but, as in all cases, hurrying a thing through without enough study and reflection just results in chaos, unhappiness, and resentment.
In my case, even though I have only met the requirements partway, I have tried to do the right thing. I don’t feel guilty, and I am being fair under the circumstances. My resources aren’t a bottomless well, and I’ll share what I can afford, but the K. Law needs seriously to be amended if we are expected to follow it.
And the sign-up process should be simpler so that we won’t feel we are being punished for doing our part.
Name withheld upon request
