THE Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) is informing all employees of government and private sector who encounter work-related disabilities that they can claim compensation benefits and career's allowance.
The ECC team is in the city as they brace for the advocacy seminar in Camiguin to inform over 100 participants, mostly human resource officers, employers of various establishments, government representatives, and all uniformed personnel to intensify awareness on the employees’ compensation (EC) program.
The newly-approved executive order 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 for the private sector.
For ECC executive director Stella Zipagan-Banawis, awareness on the compensation benefits has been their ultimate challenge in the commission. In a year, they only serve an average of 220,000 claims and releases P1.3 billion fund for these claims.
"We have a revenue of about P5 billion in a year coming from collection and investment, but we only release up to P1.3 billion funds. Our challenge is really the awareness, our employees do not know that the government have a package of benefits for work-related injuries, diseases, and even death," Zipagan-Banawis said.
She noted that ECC's current assets is at P60 billion.
Zipagan-Banawis said in an ECC awareness survey, the commission learned that only 24 percent knows of the employees’ compensation benefits.
In Northern Mindanao for instance, there were only 295 claimants recorded last year.
Jonathan Villasoto, ECC deputy executive director, explained that these benefits are different from the SSS and GSIS benefits one can claim.
The employees compensation for the temporary or total disability and sickness benefits has been increased from a minimum daily income benefit of P10 to P110 and from a maximum daily income benefit of P200 to P480.
So a worker who suffers from temporary/total disability receives a possible maximum amount of P960, including the SSS claim.
The new executive order is in line with ECC's mandate to continuously enhance and upgrade the employees’ benefits which answers the basic need of an individual.