The other week, I gave my house help their annual raise in salary and told them I would advance the money for the entire year and open a bank account for each of them with it. (I wish I was the one who came up with this brilliant strategy, but it was Noet Ravalo who wrote about this in his column piece “Savings program for ‘kasam-bahays’”)

As I was asking whether they had any form of identification that we can use to open a bank account, I discovered that they had applied for SSS membership (something that I had suggested to them a year or so ago) but that it would take six months for them to get their ID.

Hmm. Should I encourage them to contribute to the SSS?
[Read the rest of this entry »]