Over half of the elderly in the Philippines have no pension, and 40 percent are left without income security, a report by the International Labor Organization said Friday.
Overall, more than half of the world's elderly also have to income protection at all, the ILO's World Social Protection Report 2017-2019, released Nov. 29 but only made available yesterday, added.
Despite progress in recent years, the Philippines’ social protection system retains serious gaps, the report added. Most of the country's elderly do not have a pension, despite a significant increase in allocation, in contrast to countries like China, Thailand, Mongolia, Brunei Darussalam and Timor-Leste, which have considerably expanded their coverage through the use of universal tax funded pensions, the ILO noted.
“ILO’s new report shows many countries, regionally and across the world, are prioritizing their social protection systems. We think this is a good time for Philippines to follow the same path and extend protection to its elderly through the launch of a universal pension," Khalid Hassan, Director of ILO Manila Country Office, said.
The pension gap is happening at the same time that life expectancy for Filipinos is rising on average, the report added. Between years 2000 and 2015, life expectancy rose by five years, the fastest increase since the 1960s.
"This makes the low pension coverage a particularly troubling problem, creating additional financial burdens for family, as the ratio between elderly parents and adult children rise," the ILO lamented.
In 2017, the Philippine government made efforts to increase benefit levels of senior citizens receiving contributory pension, and to increase the social pension coverage of indigent senior citizens, the United Nations labor agency added.
"However, around 40 percent of Filipino senior citizens are still left without income security," it said.
On the positive side, social protection remains one of the major agenda in the country, as reflected in the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022, launched in January 2017, the ILO noted.
The plan has identified adopting and institutionalizing the Social Protection Floor as one of the strategies to achieve universal social protection under the Strategic framework to reduce vulnerability of individuals and families.
Specific strategies include establishing an unemployment insurance system, enhancing social protection for the informal sector, improving the social pension system, expanding health insurance packages, and strengthening mechanisms to ensure enrollment in the social security system, among others.
Further, it also highlights the need to address implementation issues on convergence, planning, mainstreaming at the local level and better data collection.
The ILO said only 29 percent of the world population enjoys comprehensive social protection.
"This leaves many vulnerable to poverty, inequality and social exclusion, constituting a major obstacle to economic and social development for any country," the ILO stated in its flagship report.
The report provides an inventory of social protection worldwide—covering the state of benefits for maternity, unemployment, old age, healthcare, and other factors.
Despite being considered the engine of the world economy, Asia clearly lags behind when it comes to the protection of its population.
The decades-long development model dominating the region prioritized economic growth at the expense of redistributive policies. Consequently, a large share of the population are denied the right to social protection, the ILO said.
The report said the gap in pension coverage is particularly relevant because the region is aging at a historically unprecedented rate.
ILO said where Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries took 50 to 100 years to transition from young to old societies, Asian countries are taking just 20 to 25 years. And yet, nearly half the elderly in the region still do not benefit from a pension, a proportion that is only higher in Africa.