The 10% increase in EC monthly pension covers the following EC benefits: Permanent Partial Disability (PPD) benefits, Permanent Total Disability (PTD) benefits, and death benefits. Based on the data provided by the GSIS, 1, 957 disability pensioners and 3, 362 death pensioners will benefit from the 10 % increase in monthly pension. Applying the 10% increase to the present average EC pension will result to an increase in average EC monthly disability pension from P 1,623.00 to P 1,818.00 and from P 1,627.00 to P 1,839.00 average EC monthly death pension.
Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) Executive Director Stella Zipagan-Banawis said that the last across-the-board increase for EC monthly pension in the public sector was implemented in 1982 at the rate of twenty percent (20%). Director Banawis added that the said situation prompted the ECC to approved the issuance of Board Resolution (BR) No. 15-01-01 (“Approving a Ten Percent (10%) Increase in EC Pension effective May 1, 2015 for the Public Sector,”dated January 14, 2015)subject to approval of the Office of the President.
The recent increase in EC pension is the result of an actuarial study conducted by the GSIS which showed that its managed State Insurance Fund (SIF) can finance the said increase without affecting the stability of the SIF and without requiring additional EC premium from the government.
From 2011 to date, a review of the EC benefits has been made where six EC benefits have been increased, or rationalized, to pursue equalization of benefits for the private and the public sector workers.
As provided under BR No. 15-01-01, the retroactive application of the 10 % across-the-board increase in EC monthly pension shall take effect 15 days after the publication of the corresponding Executive Order in a newspaper of general circulation.