Company Profile
The Philippine Social
Security System (Filipino: Paseguruhan ng Kapanatagang Panlipunan,
or SSS) is a social
insurance program for
workers in the Philippines. It began in 1957. It is a government agency that
provides retirement and health benefits to all enrolled employees in the
Philippines. Members of the SSS can also make 'salary' or 'calamity' loans.
Salary loans depend on the monthly salary of the employee. Calamity loans are
for such times when there is a calamity that has been so declared by the
government, in the area where the SSS member lives, such as flooding,
earthquake and natural disasters.
Employees of the Philippine National Government do not contribute to SSS but rather have
their own system, the Government
Service Insurance System or GSIS.
Narrative
We arrived at the NAIA around
7:30 AM. It was really a big and nice airport as what I am always heard
and seen on Televisions. We were the first batch to arrive at Manila so right
after a minute of waiting for our belongings, we were then asked to be geared
up for our first company visit in the SSS Main Bldg at East Ave.,
Diliman, Quezon City. I was a bit surprise since as we have been
practicing every after travel , I thought of having a rest even for
an hour only(hehe), unfortunately , the trip was not that like the trips way
back in high schools and grade schools. happily, we have about 1 hour before
making to the site, so instead of making myself fascinated on the views against
the window of the bus , I put myself to rest to lessen the fatigue and physical
exhaustion brought by the plane.
We were able to reach the SSS
Main Building around 10. Suppose to be, we must be there at about 8 – 9
but because of some unexpected
circumstances happened at the airport, we did not made it on time. From that
moment, I thought the SSS staffs were gnashing their teeth already.
Fortunately, they are too kind to make be like what I thought, and guess what;
they organized a program exclusive for us. Hmmm… they were too good to be true.
^_^
What I learned?
The
program starts formally right after we were all settled up. We were
welcomed by their pretty MC Ms. Mercy Lucena. The first speaker talked was Ms.
Marissa Bugante, a UP Graduate and she was in the corporate department of the
Company. She did the opening remarks and introduced us their company. Next was
Ms. Eugenia dela Cruz, she talked about the history of the Company, how they
progress and endured the years passed and also their programs offered to the
people. One thing that did went under the surface of my mine from the lectures
of the first 3 speakers was that when you are once a member, you will always be
a member of the company—nice slogan and so true.
The last speaker from the company was Mr.
Leo Abayon from the Production Center. At last, they will to introduce us
to their IT division. He first discussed the beginnings of their usage of the
technology. It was in years 1970-1983 when they started using computers, huge
computers – NCR machines as they call them . in year 1983, they created 2
branch online and since the company was growing rapidly, in 1986 they were able
to centralized their operations and made another online branches. It was in
1992-1996 when they switch to full computerization and in 1997-2003 they
recentralized their databases and had a business recovery center. In these
years also they started clustering their servers in order to support their
growing company. In the present they are using SUN M9000 server is the Oracle’s
highest-performance and largest-multiprocessor enterprise server delivering
massive scalability, up to 64 processors and 256 cores to handle the largest
workloads. It's designed for demanding virtualization, consolidation, and
multi-hosting deployments that require mission-critical RAS features.
Currently, they have 3,722 Web Inquiry Systems, about 839,247 Web registered
members including Web registered Employees, 106 receiving and processing
centers. Their regional hubs has the capacity of 1.7 DB record,a private network
connected to public networks and uses TELCO Grade Firewall. the company was
indeed well informed to the new technologies passes by.
After the talk of the last speaker, our very own Professor Dr. Randy
Gamboa, they accompany us on a tour to their building. From the Museum to
the library wherein we were able to know the company’s humble beginnings. Then
,we went to the MAC or the Members Assistance Center wherein they teach us how
they corporate all their services and also they introduced to us the ID capture
and the use of Biometrics. The last tour was in their production centre. We
went to the first section of the center, the AUTOMATIC FINGERPRINT
IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM where they showed us how they match fingerprints and how
they were able to identify unauthorized users. The second section was UMID then
the third was MAILING section.
What I liked?
What I liked about the company was their staffs. They welcomed us warmly and as
a matter of fact, they prepared a yummy snacks (burger and bottled tea) to keep
us energized. And of course, the best thing about them was the fact that they
did not prohibited us to explore their company especially in their IT
division.
This reason why among the companies we’ve visited, this was one of my
favorites.
What I didn’t like?
What I didn’t like about the
visit was the long talks of the speakers especially those speakers who took a
long time to advertise their company—from History to their Services. Their
topics were so far from what we want to hear.
