A leader of the House of Representatives on Sunday challenged the Philippines’ top retailers to follow in the footsteps of America’s Walmart Inc., which has hired some 200,000 new temporary or part-time workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We would urge our leading supermarket and minimart chains – since they are the only ones thriving for now–to stay open for longer hours and start hiring on a temporary or part-time basis furloughed employees from other industries,” Deputy Speaker and Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel said.
“This way, retailers can also help ease the economic pain of the crisis as they grapple with the surge in households stocking up on food and other basic necessities,” Pimentel said.
Pimentel addressed his challenge to SM Retail Inc., Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc., Cosco Capital Inc., Philippine Seven Corp. and other big retailers.
SM Retail owns SM Supermarket, SM Hypermarket and the Savemore chains.
Robinsons Retail runs Robinsons Supermarket, The Marketplace, Rustan’s Supermarket, Shopwise, Ministop, Southstar Drug, and The Generics Pharmacy chains.
Cosco owns Puregold, S&R, NE Bodega, Budgetlane and Lawson chains, while Philippine Seven runs the 7-Eleven stores.
“Retailers ought to enlarge their operations and recruit additional cashiers, stockers and baggers to work in stores as well as extra personnel for warehousing, distribution and delivery activities,” Pimentel said.
In a related development, Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr. on Sunday urged the Social Security System and other agencies to invest more aggressively in boosting their “computing capacities” so that they can deliver superior services to the public over the Internet.
“Agencies providing frontline services should upgrade their computer and information systems to meet the rapidly growing public demand for easier and faster online transactions,” Campos said.
“With or without the COVID-19 pandemic, the future of public transactions is clearly electronic and online—not over-the-counter in brick-and-mortar agency branches,” Campos said.
Campos made the statement as the SSS website entered its second week down, stalling claims for much-needed benefits as President Rodrigo Duterte ordered a two-week extension of the Enhanced Community Quarantine to May 15 to fight the pandemic.
A notice posted on the SSS website says: “Please be advised that the SSS website (sss.gov.ph) has been on downtime since April 18, 2020. While we expected higher online traffic due to the launch of the Small Business Wage Subsidy (SBWS), the overwhelming response to this program surpassed the computing capacity of the system.
“We are urgently updating our site to accommodate this surge. In the meantime, we will be sending out e-mails for alternative application arrangements to SBWS-eligible employers whose e-mail addresses are on file and have been deemed compliant with both BIR and SSS regulations. We will inform the public as soon as the website is operational. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope for your understanding,” the SSS notice said.
Campos urged SSS, Pag-IBIG Fund, Philippine Health Insurance Corp., Government Service Insurance System and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to improve and expand the transactions that their respective members can conveniently perform online.