John Jonas covers maternity and paternity leave in the Philippines: mothers get 105 paid days through SSS if they contributed for 3 consecutive months, plus an optional 30 unpaid days. Fathers get 7 days, or up to 14 if the mother transfers 7 of hers. PhilHealth covers delivery and 45 days hospital confinement with 9 months of contributions.
Questions this episode answers
105 days (with option to extend an additional 30 days without pay).
She must have contributed/paid into SSS for three consecutive months in the past 12 months.
Pay into PhilHealth for at least nine months within a 12-month period (can backpay contributions in many cases).
Up to 45 days of hospital confinement.
Seven (7) days; the mother may allocate seven of her maternity days to the father, giving him up to 14 days.
Chapters
Welcome to the Secret Sauce of Outsourcing podcast that's dedicated to making you better at working with OFS online Filipino specialists. This is episode 290, maternity leave and paternity Leave in the Philippines. So I'll be honest, I know nothing about this other than what Julia has told me over the years. I can't actually think of. I mean, I don't remember when someone on my team took maternity leave, although I'm sure it has happened over the years. And I'm going to tell you my experience with it at the end. And most of that comes from other people telling me what happened. So for this podcast, really just gonna have to read what Julia wrote to me. And she's pretty good at this, so here's what she says. Maternity leave is a long established employee benefit here in the Philippines. Here are answers to questions. How long does maternity leave in the Philippines last? Under Philippine law, women are entitled to up to 105 days of maternity leave with the option to extend that maternity leave for an additional 30 days without pay. So I'm interjecting, that's pretty long. Where's the pay going to come from? Does the employer pay for that? No. The maternity leave with pay is covered by the SSS or our Social Security system. Women are entitled to this maternity benefit if they have contributed or paid into the system for three consecutive months in the past 12 months. Ideally, they should contribute 14% of their monthly salary to get the benefit that closely matches their earnings. Now I'm interjecting here, SSS is one of the benefits that we talk about paying people. And you can find out about that inside of your onlinejobs PH account, Go to the My Account page, which is the page you should log land on when you log in. Scroll down. It should be on the left side under your guides for outsourcing. It's a whole entire guide about benefits. But just to recap this one, if they're paying into sss, which they can make back payments to pay into SSS so that they get this, they get this benefit from SSS, then when they take maternity leave, SSS will pay them the 105 days of maternity leave. You don't have to pay that. Okay, next question. What if they're a new OFS and haven't started making contributions yet, does that mean they can't avail of this benefit? Her answer? They can still get SSS maternity benefits if they pay for the three months worth of contributions in one go. After that, they can start applying for the process of getting their maternity Leave benefits. After filing all the necessary paperwork, they'll receive a check or direct bank transfer from the sss. Next, what else does a female OFS get with their maternity leave? If the worker also paid into our socialized health care system, PhilHealth, they would be entitled to the maternity care package. To avail of the maternity care package, they need to pay into PhilHealth for at least nine months straight within a 12 month period and give birth in a PhilHealth accredited hospital, which most hospitals in the Philippines are. The maternity care package would cover the cost of standard diagnostic, natural or C section birth procedures and up to 45 days hospital confinement. I'm interjecting, 45 days. That's a really long time in the hospital. Okay, next question. What if the OFS hasn't paid nine contributions yet? Are they still entitled to the PhilHealth benefit? Like the SSS, they can choose to pay all nine contributions in one go. But it's strongly encouraged they start contributing to the fund as soon as they find out they're pregnant to make the payments easier. And really, I'm interjecting again. They should be paying SSS all the time. This is their long term retirement. There's so many things that. So many good things from sss. It's something they should be paying. What about paternity leave? Is that a thing in the Philippines? Yes it is. Men are entitled to seven days of paternity leave. Women can opt to allocate seven days of their maternity leave to their partners, giving men up to 14 days of leave. How to file for maternity leave The SSS and PhilHealth recommend that women start processing their maternity leave paperwork 30 days before their expense expected due dates to avoid delays in receiving their benefits. For the most part, all they need to do here is update their SSS and philhealth records to show that they have paid their contributions. Start filling up the SSS and PhilHealth paper to apply for those benefits. For PhilHealth medical benefits. Make sure that the hospital and its doctors are PhilHealth accredited. That's all of it from Julia. I hope that is helpful. Now here's my experience in this and what usually happens if you have someone who's pregnant? They may or may not tell you that they're pregnant initially. In fact, usually in my experience, they don't. They wait a long time to tell you because they're worried that you're going to fire them because they're pregnant, which means they're going to have a baby and have to take time off and they don't want to lose their job. So they're going to wait before they tell you that they're pregnant. Then when they're about to have the baby, they're going to tell you, I'm pregnant, I'm going to have a baby. And they're going to need some time off. They'll estimate how much time off they need, which is unlikely to be three months. In my experience. It's been usually about two weeks. And they'll try and come back to work really quickly for two reasons. Number one, they want to double dip. Life in the Philippines is hard, and if they can get double salary for any amount of time, that's a big deal. So if they can get paid by SSS for 105 days and come back to you and get paid by you, still, wow, that's such a good win for them. Now when, when this happens with us, I don't remember, which I already said I don't remember it happening, but we would just continue to pay them so they could get their SSS benefits and get paid by us the entire time, even when they're off. Yeah, that's what we would do with it. Having a kid is hard and there's a lot of expense that comes along with having a baby. So we would want to help put them ahead. And then the second reason that they're coming back so quickly, not just because they want to double dip, but because they actually care about your business and they actually care about their job. They want to make sure that you're happy, they want your business to grow so that they continue to have a job. They want to get their work done. They understand they have responsibilities, they care, and that's why they're eager to come back after they have a baby. Now, in all of this, I don't really have much else to add from what Julia said other than I have five kids. And when my wife has had our babies, two weeks was enough for her to be able to probably work at a computer. She's never worked, but probably work at a computer some time. Certainly not full time, but not with all of our kids. A couple of the kids. She really struggled after having the baby and there's no way she could have gone back to work after two weeks. She would have needed months. And so just be aware of the, the situation of someone who's pregnant. And after they have a baby, everybody's bodies react differently and it can be really, really difficult. Try and be lenient with them.
