The Employees Compensation Commission released about P700 million in benefits to private and public sector workers who sustained job-related sickness, injury, or disability in the first half of 2017.
The amount included the benefits received by the beneficiaries of workers who died while in the performance of duty.
ECC Executive Director Stella Zipagan-Banawis reported that under its intensified Employees’ Compensation Program (ECP), the agency approved 142,812 claims with total value of P672,521,916. Releases were made through the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System.
A big chunk of the benefits was released through the SSS with P571.78 million for 122,707 claims.
Of this amount, 74 percent or P421.1 million went to death and pension benefits with 97,918 claims. The rest were releases for sickness benefits, disability, medical services reimbursements, funeral benefits, and rehabilitation services.
The GSIS meanwhile processed 20,105 benefit claims worth P100 million, of which P75.73 million were for death and pension claims.
Banawis said that the agency managed to raise the amount of benefits released to 43 percent, while it also noted a two percent decrease in the number of claims processed from January-June 2017, compared with those recorded during the same period last year.
“We put premium on the safety and health of our workers, and we continue to emphasize the fact that prevention is always better than compensation,” Banawis said.
She also reported that the state insurance fund (SIF) at the SSS has a life beyond 2080 while GSIS’s fund life is 2059.
ECC was created to implement the ECP which provides a package of benefits for public and private sector employees and their dependents in the event of work-related incidents such as sickness, injury, disability or death. (DOLE)
