The Employees Compensation Commission or ECC has decided to peg money assistance for the workers, including front-line workers, at only 10,000 pesos, Bello disclosed during an online press briefing last week.
“Not enough to buy pain relievers. We need to increase the benefits of our workers,” he said. He recommended that the cash assistance for workers who fall ill from Covid-19 should not be less than 50,000 pesos or about $1,000.
The ECC is mandated to provide compensation to government and private-sector workers in case of work-related illness, injury, or death. It has eight board members, six of them ex officio and two appointees of the President for a fixed term of office.
Bello serves as ex-officio board chair, while the presidents of the Social Security System and the Government Service Insurance System, chairpersons of Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and the Civil Service Commission chairperson, executive director of the ECC secretariat, and representatives of employees and employers are members.
The ECC has “90 billion pesos in funds just sleeping in the bank. It’s earning a lot but the workers are deprived of getting enough benefits,” Bello said.
“Do you know why the ECC’s funds have ballooned? So stingy! Imagine we’re talking of employees compensation,” he added.
He chided the commission’s executive director and presidential appointee, Stella Zipagan-Banawis, for being “stingy.”
The ECC has so far released this year 827 million pesos or over $17.9 million in compensation benefits to some 80,000 employees, and provided 20.7 million pesos or over $428,000 in assistance to more than 2,000 front-line workers who tested positive for the coronavirus.
Front-line workers include health-care workers, government workers, protective service workers from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, cashiers and crew in grocery stores, production and food processing workers, janitors and maintenance workers, and truck drivers.
The Department of Labor and Employment or DOLE is rushing to disburse before Christmas the 16.4 billion pesos or $339.2 million allocated for financial assistance to workers displaced by the pandemic under the Bayanihan (Cooperation) to Heal as One Act.
DOLE provides 5,000 pesos or $103 cash assistance for displaced formal sector workers, with special allocation for workers in the tourism and education sectors; cash-for-work program for informal sector workers; and $200 cash aid for displaced overseas Filipino workers.