Qualified pensioners of the Employees Compensation Commission (ECC) will start receiving their one-time cash aid of P20,000 starting this June, Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Secretary Silvestre Bello III said.
“The P20,000 financial assistance from the ECC for private sector EC pensioners will be credited to their accounts starting this month of June,” Bello revealed in a statement Tuesday, June 1.
He said the financial assistance will be released in batches to about 32,000 EC pensioners by the Social Security System (SSS) and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS)--the ECC‘s administering agencies for the private and public sector.
ECC Executive Director Stella Zipagan-Banawis, in her report to the DOLE secretary who is the Chairman of the ECC, said that qualified EC pensioners need not apply for the financial assistance as it will be processed in the same manner as the processing of their EC pensions.
“EC pensioners in the private sector with at least one month of permanent partial disability (PPD), permanent total disability (PTD), or survivorship pension from January 1, 2020, to May 31, 2021, will benefit from the one-time financial assistance,” Banawis said.
In case of the death of the eligible EC pensioner during the prescribed period of January 1, 2020, to May 31, 2021, the one-time financial assistance will be released to his or her beneficiary.
“The EC pensioners have suffered work-related disability and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic compounded their vulnerability as they deal with undue financial hardships,” Banawis noted.
“We hope that the one-time financial assistance can ease the financial burdens of our EC pensioners during this trying time. Rest assured that ECC is tirelessly working to provide more assistance to our workers," she said.