FILIPINO STUDYING SOCIAL SECURITY

Press, Volume C, Issue 29499, 28 April 1961, Page 21

FILIPINO STUDYING SOCIAL SECURITY

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON. April 27. A study of New Zealand's Social Security system is being made by the chief of the research and public information staff of the Philippines Social Security system, Mr Froilan M. Bacungan. Mr Bacungan is S.E.AsT.O. research fellow on Social Security for 1960-01, and is spending six weeks in New Zealand studying the -Social Security system after a similar study in Australia. Mr Baeungan's research project involves a comparative and analytical study of the Social Security programmes of economicallydeveJbping countries still in transition from agricultural to industrial economies. The Philippines. Pakistan. and Thailand are three such countries. Mr Bacungan is particularly interested in the financing of Social Security benefits. One of the main purposes of tfle present study is to find out how sharing the cost of Social Security has been resolved in the various countries whose social programmes are being studied. The four-year-old scheme in the Philippines is modelled on the Social Security system as operated in the United

States, but it involves only 400.000 of the Phillipines’ total population of 20 million. The scheme operates as a form of social insurance, only those paying into it receive benefits. Thus, salary and wage earners are the contributors. No. health benefits operated under the present system in his country, said Mr Bacungan. Eventually the hope—probably a long-term one —will be to expand the scheme to operate on the lines of New Zealand’s Social Security system, he said.