More than 115,000 employees of small businesses adversely affected by the work stoppage resulting from the coronavirus pandemic have already received their cash grants under the Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS) program as of May 1. Half of these beneficiaries received their salary subsidies on April 30, or ahead of the May 1-15 payout schedule for the first tranche of this government subsidy.

A joint program of the Department of Finance (DOF), Social Security System (SSS) and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), the SBWS aims to provide a monthly wage subsidy of P5,000 to P8,000 each for two months to around 3.4 million eligible employees of small businesses affected by the economic standstill after separate quarantine measures were imposed nationwide in March to stop the further spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The subsidy ranges from P5,000 to P8,000 per tranche for every beneficiary, depending on the minimum wage levels in their respective regions.

Finance Assistant Secretary Antonio Lambino II said that “As of May 1, the SSS, through its partnership with the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), has released wage subsidies for a total of 115,782 employees of small businesses. 106,000 beneficiaries who chose to receive the subsidy through MLhuillier are being notified via text message that their cash is ready for pickup. For 9,782 of them, the cash has been deposited directly to their bank or e-wallet accounts.”

MLhuillier Financial Services is the partner-remittance center of the SSS.

“Over the past few days, the SSS was able to process the submissions of around 76,915 employers. Upon the instruction of Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, the SBWS task force started releasing the subsidy earlier than scheduled. The electronic application and automated payout systems definitely made the release of benefits faster than programs that use manual processing,” he added.

The DOF, SSS, and BIR had earlier announced on their Facebook pages that employees picking up their cash subsidy through the MLhuillier must present the text message they received from the SSS along with any of the following valid IDs:

· Alien Certification of Registration

· Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) ID

· Barangay Certification

· Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Visa

· Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Certificate

· Driver’s License

· Employment ID (Government or Private)

· Firearm License Card

· Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) eCard Plus

· Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG) Card

· Immigrant Certificate of Registration

· Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) ID

· National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Clearance

· National Council for the Welfare of Disabled Persons (NCWDP) Certification

· Student ID (for working students eligible under the program). Must be currently enrolled. Must present original and submit a clear copy of photo-bearing ID duly signed by the principal or head of the school.

· Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) ID

· Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) ID

· Passport (Local or Foreign)

· Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) ID

· Police Clearance (electronic)

· Postal ID

· Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) ID

· Seafarer’s ID and Record Book

· Senior Citizen ID

· Social Security System (SSS) Biometrics ID

· Tax Identification Number (TIN) ID

· Unified Multi-Purpose ID

· Voter’s ID

All Valid IDs to be presented must be original, photo-bearing, unexpired and signed by the respective beneficiaries.

According to the DOF, applications may be submitted until May 8, 2020 using one of three methods.

The first is through the employer’s My.SSS account on the SSS website and the second is via an E-form submission through a secure site, for eligible employers with email addresses on file.

The third is via Microsoft Excel file upload to sbws.sss.gov.ph. The third application method was launched by the SSS on April 28 in an effort to make the application process even simpler for small businesses.

The SBWS program is part of the government’s interventions to support vulnerable groups and individuals, including micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which employ the majority of Filipinos.

These efforts belong in the economic team’s four-pillar strategy to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic and help the economy recover from measures that have been put in place to stop the spread of the disease.

It covers the following: [1] providing poor and low-income households, small-business employees and other vulnerable groups emergency and wage subsidies; [2] marshalling the country’s medical resources and ensuring the safety of its healthcare frontliners; [3] fiscal and monetary actions to finance emergency initiatives and keep the economy afloat; and [4] an economic recovery plan to create jobs and sustain growth under a post-quarantine scenario.

-oOo-