Where is all the money for the poor, the elderly and the ailing?

Ibu Rini is 68 years old and walks a distance of up to 8 kilometers a day selling roast chicken in neighborhoods and school complexes in Bekasi, West Java.

A fighter against the Dutch, Rini prefers her independence than having to live with one of her grown children and begging for pocket money.

But then her husband died, and she suddenly found herself living in her old house with her youngest daughter and her family.

"My son-in-law later lost his job, and wanted to open his own business. I suggested that we sell roast chicken, with me going around the neighborhood as the vendor," Rini said. Her son-in-law and daughter was originally horrified, saying it would be such an embarrassment.

Rini soon showed them they had no reason to be ashamed, and now contributes significantly to the family's survival. "Besides, I like making people happy with my roast chicken, which is healthy and halal (permitted to Muslims)," she said.

"All I want is to spend my old age earning His blessing, and hope that if I should die I will die in full acceptance of Allah's ruling of my life."

Nawawi, also 68, is a garbage man and a grandfather of 10 in Pondok Gede, East Jakarta. When he first came to the neighborhood some 50 years ago from Central Java, there was a lot of vacant land so he was able to start farming.

But then development projects took over, and his family gradually lost their land to the projects -- the money from selling the land, however, did not last for long.

For several years he was unemployed ("what work can you get with no diplomas?") before he became a garbage man. He is thankful that two of his daughters are now married and living with their husbands, while his wife has a job in Tanjung Priok.

"Carting garbage is really heavy work, and I have to compete with garbage truckers around here," he said.

"I have to go on because I still have to feed, clothe and educate my three other children. I want them to achieve something better in their lives. I want my children to go on to the University of Indonesia."

Mas'ud, 70, is known in his neighborhood in Cipayung, East Jakarta, as McGyver, after the TV character famous in the 1980s, for his seemingly endless ability to fix things.

Indeed, Mas'ud has for years been working as a repair man for various electronic appliances -- visitors flock to his house almost every day carrying broken fans, watches, TVs, radios and toys to be fixed.

"We are usually satisfied with his work," said one customer patiently waiting his turn.

Mas'ud is diabetic and has recently been hospitalized, while his wife Aminah, who is three years younger, has suffered two strokes. Their three grown children took care of the hospital bills just as they regularly send money to the elderly couple every month.

"I don't work because I need the money as our children see to it that we have enough," Mas'ud said proudly.

Unlike Rini and Nawasi, Mas'ud does not have to work to earn a living. But like Rini and Nawasi, and millions of other elderly Indonesians, Mas'ud is vulnerable to sickness and hefty hospital bills as there is no such thing as health insurance available to them.

Like many Indonesians, their "insurance" takes the form of children who care for them in their old age -- not always a reliable or even viable option.

By 2015, the country will have approximately 24 million people over the age of 60 who will not be protected by any sort of social security system.

"This a social time bomb in the making," said Sulastomo, a member of the government's Social Health Insurance Policy Development Project, when presenting the results of a study on the social security systems in Korea, Thailand, Germany and France during a recent workshop in Jakarta.

Even now, the existing social security schemes cover less than 20 percent of the population. Out of a workforce of approximately 95 million persons, 24 million are employed in the formal sector -- but not all are covered by social security schemes.

The remaining millions of other workers -- known as "self- employed" -- have to fend for themselves when illness and other calamities strike.

"If the government cannot handle this problem (of providing social security) for its people, it shouldn't be allowed to continue to govern this country," a participant -- an official with a state-owned pension fund firm -- said scathingly during the workshop.

"If the government cannot protect its people, who will? The U.S. government?" the livid official went on.

"The government has not been fair toward its own people and civil servants -- it does not honor its responsibility (of paying for social security) but forces state-owned firms to pay for it."

Speakers during the event, including Sulastomo, conceded that some social protection had indeed been established. PT Jamsostek, PT Askes, PT Taspen and PT Asabri collectively manage today some Rp 65 trillion under various social security schemes for workers of private firms, civil servants and pensioners, and for police and military personnel.

There are efforts to being about reform, however. Presidential Decree No. 20/2002 established the National Social Welfare System Task Force, which has been entrusted with the task of designing a social security system for Indonesia.

The members of the task force have gone to Korea, Thailand, Germany and France to study the systems applied in these countries, and presented their findings during the workshop.

A cooperative venture was established with the European Union Delegation in Jakarta -- later giving birth to the Indonesia Social Health Insurance Policy Development Project. Team leader Dimitri Biot said the project was designed to assist with the development of an equitable, viable, effective and efficient healthcare system.

"In fact, the project covers a broader scope, including social security issues that go beyond health issues," Biot said.

More importantly, the task force has produced a draft bill on social security system -- which members hope to soon submit to the House of Representatives. The document delineates not only the principles of a good social security system, but also the necessary preconditions for such a system to be successful.

Political will on the part of the government topped the list of these preconditions. Achmad Subianto, the director of PT Taspen, said the current administration had its shortcomings but at least it had displayed its commitment to bettering the lot of workers by providing bonuses (THR).

"It took us two years of campaigning to achieve this," Subianto said, recounting how in the past the absence of holiday bonuses often led to corruption as civil servants manipulated travel expenses to earn additional income.

Sadly, most of the speakers at the workshop had long lists of factors that they thought might jeopardize the attempt at reforming the social security system -- with the most notable factor being poor governance.

Philip Townsend, a representative of the International Business Chambers, questioned how Indonesia, with poorly developed human resources and such a great deal of diversity, could manage a program that would involve huge amounts of money when it lacked a tradition of transparency and accountability.

Townsend welcomed the new campaign to provide better healthcare for workers, but questioned where the money would come from when Indonesia allotted less than 1 percent of its GDP on this field.

"Why doesn't the government provide the funding itself?" he asked, before suggesting that the government resort to the so- called "sin taxes" on the tobacco and alcohol industries to provide the resources.

A neglected social security system -- which led to even poorer human resources -- would mean the final nail in the coffin of foreign investment, which the government was so earnestly striving to attract, Townsend said.

Legislator Sanusi Tambunan also questioned the government's ability to properly run a national social security program in a transparent and accountable manner.

The public, for instance, was never informed about how the taxes they paid were spent or what the government did with the money saved from the scrapping of oil and gas subsidies.

"Where does the money go?" Tambunan asked.

A big question, indeed, when most people agree that a strong social security system for everybody is "mandated by the people, and the Constitution", and calls for trustworthiness on the part of the government and the body responsible for running the system. -- Santi W.E. Soekanto and Maya Dahlan