A total of 155,672 employees from 4,290 tourism-related enterprises received their cash grants under the joint program of the Department of Finance (DOF), Social Security System (SSS), and Bureau of Internal Revenue, called the Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBSW) program as of May 4.
Since March, the Department of Tourism (DOT) has been seeking the assistance of various national government agencies to extend their services to the tourism sector, one of the hardest hit industries of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are grateful to the DOF, SSS and BIR for providing our affected tourism workers with a monthly wage subsidy for 2 months. With tourism hampered, and eventually closed during the first 5 months of the year, these cash grants will go a long way in helping them weather this period while travel restrictions are still in effect,” said Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat.
As of May 4, the SSS, through its partnership with the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) has uploaded to PESOnet or DBP Pera Padala, through MLhuillier Financial Services, the partner-remittance center of the SSS, the following beneficiaries: 155,126 employees of 4,723 employers in the Hotel and Restaurant industry and 546 employees of 17 employers in the Air Transport industry.
According to a recent press release by the DOF, the SBWS aims to provide a monthly wage subsidy of P5,000 to P8,000 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 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.
