Marites Navarro, surviving spouse of a  missing security guard assigned at Bubunawan Hydropower Plant in Bukidnon,  received ten thousand pesos as funeral benefits under the EC Program. Aside from the said amount, the deceased’s family   will receive a monthly death benefit pension for the security guard’s   work-connected death.

According to the reports, the said hydropower plant was one of the establishments badly hit by Typhoon Sendong wherein ten workers died.  However,   only one body was found and the other nine are still missing.

Under ECC Board Resolution 93-08-0068, dated 5 August 1993, the provision on presumptive death provides that:  “If one is declared presumptively dead after he had been reported missing for some time, payment of death benefits shall be reckoned from the date he was declared presumptively dead by proper authority, in accordance with law; except when the declaration of death specified another date, in such a case, payment of death benefits shall start from the latter date; and, in spite of the fact that the body of a missing person had not been recovered, and that no burial activities had been undertaken, the beneficiaries shall still be entitled to funeral benefits, as provided for under the law.”

As to date, only Marites Navarro received her EC funeral benefit.  The beneficiaries of the other victims who were reported to be still missing are either securing papers to substantiate their claim while the others are hoping that their loved ones are still alive.