The Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) continues to remind employers and human resource officers that under Presidential Decree 626 or the Employees’ Compensation and the State Insurance Fund, all employers are required to record chronologically the sickness, injury or death of their employees in an EC Logbook.

There is no specific format for the logbook but it must set forth therein the names, dates, and places of contingency, the nature of the contingency, and the number of days that the employee was absent from work. Within five days, the employer should submit the same to the Social Security System (SSS) or Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

Furthermore, the same law provides that should the employer fail to record in the logbook an actual sickness, injury, or death of any of his employees within the prescribed period, the employer may be held liable for 50% of the lump sum equivalent of the income benefit to which the worker may be entitled to under the EC Program.

“The maintenance of the EC logbook continues to be mandatory for all employers,” Executive Director Stella Zipagan-Banawis said. “We, therefore, remind our employers of their obligations enshrined under our statutory and labor laws. However, the non-compliance of employers with reference to the EC logbook will not deprive the worker of his or her benefits under the EC program,” Banawis added.

 

Atty. M. Basal – REU8