ECC-REU 12 responds to electrocuted linemen in Tacurong City
The Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) Regional Extension Unit 12 (ECC-REU 12) recently conducted a Quick Response Program (QRP) assistance to the families of the victims and survivor involving three employees of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) Company in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat who were electrocuted while performing their duties on July 2, 2018.
Two of the employees were confirmed dead after being severely electrocuted while the other employee suffered first degree burn and cerebral concussion. According to authorities, the victims were guiding the concrete post of PLDT company on a rainy day when the truck operator hit the primary line of Sultan Kudarat Electric Cooperative, Inc that caused their electrocution.
ECC REU 12 Regional Officer Jerylle Blanza visited the families of the victims and the survivor to inform them of their rights and benefits under the Employees’ Compensation Program.
Blanza also gave a token to the families of the victims and the survivor as ECC’s expression of its sympathy and part of the Commission’s Quick Response Program (QRP).
According to Blanza the beneficiaries are entitled to P30,000 funeral benefits and a monthly EC survivorship pension since the death of their loved ones was work-connected.
“The Employees’ Compensation Program is a government program that provides a package of benefits for both public and private sector employees and their dependents in the event of work-connected contingencies such as sickness, injury, disability or death,” Blanza explained.
Want to know more about the Employees’ Compensation Program? Email ECC at [email protected] or call 899-4251 local 227 for free on-site seminars.
End./Christopher Gamboa
ECC awards disability benefits to a miner in Tuba, Benguet
A 61 year-old miner of the Philex Mining Corporation in Tuba, Benguet was recently granted with disability benefits under the Employees’ Compensation Program for his spinal injury.
The miner worked with Philex Mining Corporation for more than 20 years. He started his career in 1993 as a structural draftsman before he was promoted to Mill Superintendent in 2014.
On January 22, 1988, he was supervising the installation of a steel beam when the same accidentally fell on the installed beam and scaffoldings, which consequently, fell on his back and his right wrist and forehead hit an installed beam. He sustained a fracture on his right wrist and hematoma on his forehead.
In 1992, the miner was diagnosed to be suffering from spinal disc disease after experiencing low back pain.
On April 7, 2006, while inspecting the crushing plant, boulders suddenly rolled down hitting him on his right leg and right forearm. He was treated at the Sto. Nino Hospital – Philex due to low-back pain and pin-like sensation over the left-lower extremities due to degenerative spinal disc disease.
A year after, he underwent Magnetic Resonance Imaging examination of his lumbar and it was discovered that he has been suffering from degenerative disc disease.
Records reveal that he was granted SSS retirement benefits effective January 1, 2016.
On June 27, 2017, the said miner filed a claim for EC disability benefits but the claim was denied by the SSS Baguio City Branch on the ground of no causal relationship after performing a physical examination.
On appeal, the Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) ruled in favor of the miner on the ground that his illness of Musculoskeletal Disorder (MSD) is included in ECC’s list of occupational and work-related diseases, and his case satisfied one of the conditions for compensability of MSD. The occupation of the miner entailed physical and manual work and the trauma he sustained in the course of his employment is the proximate cause that sets in motion an unbroken chain of events leading to the manifestation of his spinal disc disease.
The ECC believes that there is a reasonable probability that those risk factors caused or contributed to the manifestation of his spinal disc disease.
Thus, the ECC ordered SSS to grant the corresponding disability benefits to the miner plus reimbursement of medical expenses incurred for consultations, medications and laboratory examinations.
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Deviation not substantial, ECC grants EC benefits to drugstore cashier
The Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) recently granted EC disability benefits plus reimbursement of out of pocket medical expenses to a drugstore cashier due to her work-related accident.
In going to her workplace in Greenhills, the said cashier rides a jeepney from Nagcarlan to San Pablo City, Laguna. From San Pablo City, she rides a bus en route to Manila. This has been her customary routine in going to her workplace at Mercury Drugstore, Greehills Branch.
On December 25, 2013, before reporting to work she attended a Christmas mass at San Pablo City Church which was located near the street where she had to ride a jeep for work. At around 6 in the morning, after attending the mass, she crossed the street in front of the church going towards the bus terminal en route to her work in Manila when a speeding tricycle hit her.
She filed a claim for EC disability benefits before the SSS Cubao City Branch on January 17, 2014.
The branch denied the claim on the ground that there was a deviation in her act of going to her workplace at the time of the accident. The SSS main office sustained the denial of the branch.
On March 27, 2018, the case was submitted to the Technical Review Committee of the ECC for initial deliberation with a recommendation to grant the claim on the ground that she was en route to her place of work at Mercury Greenhills Branch when she met a vehicular accident near the vicinity of San Pablo City Parish Church.
At the time of the accident, she just finished attending the church mass in order to tend to her personal comfort, which in this case takes in the form of her spiritual needs. The church was located along the way to her work. It was located in a place where she necessarily has to pass by in order to get to her next ride.
In the said case, the ECC believes that there is no deviation, since deviation in order to subvert the exception to “Going to or Coming from Work Rule” must be substantial, thus, the Commission ordered SSS to grant the corresponding disability benefits under PD 626, as amended, to the cashier plus reimbursement of out of pocket medical expenses that she incurred due to her work-related injuries.
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64 year-old miner in Benguet receives ECP benefits
A 64 year-old miner in Tuba, Benguet was recently granted with disability benefits under the Employees’ Compensation Program (ECP) due to his work-related disabilities.
The miner is an electrical shift supervisor at the Philex Mining Corporation and has been in the service for sixteen years now.
On January 28, 2015, he was admitted at the Saint Louis University Hospital of the Sacred Heart, Baguio City and thereafter diagnosed with degenerative cervical spondylosis, degenerative thoracolumbar spondylosis, degenerative osteoarthritis, and mixed hearing Loss.
After having been granted SSS retirement benefits, the miner subsequently filed on April 3, 2015 a claim for disability benefits based on the said diagnosis before the SSS Baguio City Branch, which the latter denied on the ground of no causal relationship.
The denial was sustained by the SSS-Main Office on December 8, 2017. Consequently, the miner appealed to the Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC).
The ECC , upon review, found that the miner’s case to be meritorious, citing among others the reasonable probability of the working conditions in underground mining which entailed exposure to physical work and noise hazards, hence, contributed to the manifestation of musculoskeletal disorders and hearing loss, both included under the ECP’s list of compensable diseases.
Further, the ECC gave weight on the 16-year employment of the miner as an electrician helper in 1979-1992, a capataz in 1993-2008 and as a shift supervisor in 2008-2014, all of which entailed working underground and required to be stationed in the mining pit area. Such workplace involved machines and dynamite blasting which increased the tendency for the loss of hearing. As regards the musculoskeletal disorder, the same was compensable under the EC Program because of his exposure to high levels of whole body vibration, repetitive motions, lifting and performing work inflexed posture.
The ECC granted the miner’s claim pursuant to the Employees’ Compensation Law (PD 626, as amended), plus reimbursement of medical expenses incurred for consultations, medications, and laboratory examinations.
The Employees’ Compensation Commission is an attached agency of the Department of Labor and Employment which implements the Employees’ Compensation Program (ECP), a program which provides benefits for both private and public sector employees and their dependents in the event of work-related contingencies like sickness, injury, disability or death.
Want to know more about the Employees’ Compensation Program? Email ECC at [email protected] or call 899-4251 local 227 for free on-site seminars.
End./Frances Jermaine Gonzales
ECC REU 10 awards free prosthesis to PWRDs
Cagayan De Oro City – The Employees’ Compensation Commission Regional Extension Unit 10 (ECC-REU 10) recently awarded two below-the-knee and one above-elbow prosthesis to persons with work-related disabilities (PWRDs).
The granting of free prosthesis is part of the ECC’s Katulong at Gabay sa Manggagawang may Kapansanan (KaGabay) Program, it aims to provide rehabilitation services to workers who suffered from work-related contingencies, thus, making them productive citizens again.
PWRDs who received the free prosthesis are Diony Nunez, Dennis Bagotsay and Renan Villarino.
Nunez was a company driver. He encountered a vehicular accident on July 2009 while delivering goods in Bukidnon which resulted to the amputation of his leg. A friend of Nunez told him about the Employees’ Compensation Program (ECP). He was able to file and claim his benefits under the ECP and availed 5 sessions of free pre-prosthetic physical therapy.
Bagotsay on the other hand, was a clean-up crew of a manpower service assigned in a manufacturing company in CDO. In 2017, his arm was caught by the machine he was operating which resulted to its amputation. Other than the disability benefits he got from the ECP, he was also given fifteen free physical therapy sessions.
Lastly, Villarino was a wounded-in-action soldier who got injured while conducting an operation against the NPA at Surigao del Sur in 2013. The injury he obtained also resulted to the amputation of his left leg. After receiving his benefits from the ECP, Villarino underwent twelve sessions of free physical therapy and an orthopedic shoes.
The below-the-knee prosthesis awarded to Nunez and Villarino amounts to P113,000.00 and P110,000.00 respectively, while the above-elbow prosthesis granted to Bagotsay costs P180,000.00
On top of the disability benefits, free physical therapy sessions and prosthesis, the three PWRDs are also entitled to avail the livelihood training and starter kits amounting to P20,000.00 to P30,000.00 of ECC’s KaGabay Program.
“The ECC is happy to be of help to all our PWRDs but we would like to remind all our workers that even though there is an Employees’ Compensation Program, our health and safety must still be our topmost priority,” said ECC Executive Director Stella Zipagan-Banawis.
End./Stella Mae D. Obice