MANILA, Philippines ? (UPDATE) President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo approved Monday several proposals to help ease the impact of the world financial crisis on Philippine employment, including waiving penalties on social security loans of laid-off workers and subsidizing employers? fuel in export zones for transporting employees.

Speaking at a jobs summit in Malacañang, Arroyo said she was leaving it up to the regional tripartite wage boards to decide on calls for a moratorium on wages to help businesses cope with the global economic slowdown.

?The issue on moratorium on wages can be discussed when wages are due for annual review between July and August,? she said. ?That?s why we have business and labor here with us together because those are better left to labor and management to agree on among themselves.?

the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry called for a moratorium on wage, with its chairman emeritus Miguel Varela saying, ?The focus really is on job preservation, so we?re finding ways on how to reduce costs.?

?Companies are saddled because of this crisis,? Varela said.

Arroyo said one of the proposals forwarded through wage boards was for the Social Security System (SSS) to condone penalties and surcharges for one year on loans of members who have been lost jobs, and the SSS agreed.

SSS president Romulo Neri in a phone interview said the waiver was on penalties and surcharges and not on interest and principal loan payments.

Neri added that the relief applied to employees and not to employers.

Arroyo said the SSS ?is already implementing such a program, for one year.?

She also said she had given instruction for the Philippine Economic Zone Authority to provide fuel subsidy to companies in special economic zones for transporting workers to and from the zones.

Arroyo said she also approved a proposal for the government and the private sector to share data to have an ?accurate and reliable picture of the actual impact of the global financial crisis on employment and business.?

?When we were abroad we were hearing strange, huge numbers that just depress the people, but really are very far from what [the situation] really is,? said Arroyo, who returned Sunday from a weeklong swing through Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United States.