DOF releases P16.4-B to 2.1M workers

Last updated on May 7th, 2021 at 07:16 am

MANILA – The Department of Finance (DoF) has announced that a two-month wage subsidy package worth P16.4-B will be credited to the accounts of more than 2.1 million qualified beneficiary-workers of the Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) program.

The Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) program, jointly implemented by the Department of Finance (DOF), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and the Social Security System (SSS), was designed to support workers who were not able to receive their salaries due to the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) being implemented.

A total of about PHP16.4 billion worth of subsidies with the equivalent of P5,000 to P8,000 for each worker were credited as of May 12 through the beneficiaries’ bank or PayMaya accounts while workers without bank and PayMaya account will be sent through cash remittance via MLhuillier.

The SBWS program is one of the intervention programs that the Duterte admin rolled out in support of low-income families, workers of small businesses that were hit by the Covid-19 pandemic’s economic fallout.

SSS President-CEO Aurora Ignacio said that almost 160,000 employers submitted applications for the program as the applications ended on May 8, 2020. “The SSS is currently processing them, but so far, the applications for around 2.94 million employees have been approved according to program criteria. This represents around 86 percent of the program’s target of 3.4 million small business employees,” she added.