SSS president and CEO ‘RJ’ De Claro. (Photo from the Philippine News Agency)
In a bid to eliminate long queuing and promote greater accessibility to its millions of members, the Social Security System has launched a sweeping nationwide caravan that reaches out to markets and barangays through mobile government services specifically designed to directly connect with workers and pensioners and other beneficiaries.
To support the caravan, SSS is utilizing its mobile e-Wheels units and has actually begun deploying service teams to public markets and the barangays across the country as part of a weeklong outreach program designed to bring transactions closer to ordinary Filipinos, particularly those living in underserved and hard-to-reach areas.
According to SSS President and chief-executive-officer Robert Joseph De Claro, the initiative was triggered by several reports showing many pensioners, informal workers and small vendors who struggle to visit SSS branches because of transportation costs, lost income and hours wasted waiting in long lines in crowded offices.
“To solve this, we are now bringing government services directly into communities where people live and work. Our major focus here is to help low-income earners such as market vendors and ambulant sellers who cannot afford to leave their stalls unattended just to process documents or verify records at an SSS branch,” De Claro pointed out.
The caravan officially kicked off in Quezon City and across Metro Manila last Monday (May 25) and based on initial monitoring by SSS, more than 20,000 clients were able to transact their individual needs during the rollout.
With this success, De Claro announced that the mobile operations will now expand to Calapan in Mindoro, Legazpi in Albay, Silay in Negros Occidental and Siargao Island before concluding in Virac in Catanduanes.
He listed that among the transactions the mobile service hubs will process include employer registration, pension verification, member record updates, SSS number issuance, online account registration, password resets, loan applications, benefit claims and Payment Reference Number generation.
In addition to this, a major technological upgrade has also been implemented which entails facial authentication with liveness detection for the Annual Confirmation of Pensioners (ACOP) during mobile operations and thus allowing pensioners to complete verification much faster and without traveling physically to SSS branches that are mostly located in town or local government centers.
In ending, De Claro boasted that from January to April this year alone, the SSS had conducted more than 3,200 e-Wheels operations nationwide and served nearly a quarter of a million members and residents in so-called ‘last-mile’ communities found in remote areas of the country.
The innovative program has already gained international recognition after receiving the innovation award from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)’s Social Security Association two years ago.
Finally, De Claro mentioned that their mobile services program is aligned with the broader push for the decentralization of government services included in President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong ‘Marcos Jr. (PBBM)’s goal of bringing public assistance directly into communities that often struggle with access to state agencies.
