PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has signed Executive Order (EO) 54, raising the employees' compensation benefits and carer's allowance in both the private and public sectors.
For private sector employees, EO 54 provides a P1,150 across-the-board increase in permanent disability pension, maintains the minimum P2,000 monthly disability and survivorship pension, and raises the monthly pension of primary beneficiaries of the deceased and permanent disability pensioners from 80 to 100 percent.
The President also increased the carer's allowance granted to permanent disability pensioners in the private and public sectors to P1,000 from P575 monthly.
He also raised the amount of reimbursement for professional fees of physicians under the medical benefits for private workers to P400 for general practitioner and P600 for specialist practitioner.
To date, the reimbursement rates of physicians' professional fees are set at P100 (general practitioner) and P150 (specialist practitioner) for initial visit; and P80 and P100 for the succeeding visit to general and specialist practitioners, respectively.
"There is a need to continually improve benefits under the Employees' Compensation Program to make them more responsive to the welfare and development needs of occupationally disabled workers," the President said in his EO inked on May 8. (SunStar Philippines)