ECC lowers penalty for delinquent firms

MANILA, Philippines — Companies with unremitted contributions to the Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) are getting some relief.

At the Laging Handa public briefing yesterday, ECC executive director Jomar Batino said the commission opted to lower the penalty for delinquent companies.

From a penalty of 24 percent per annum or two percent per month,   Batino said the ECC would only slap a six percent penalty per annum or 0.5 percent per month for companies that fail to remit their contributions to the ECC.

“Most companies have been  affected by the pandemic. Some of them are just starting to recover,’’ explained Batino as the reason behind the ECC’s decision to lower the penalty.

“ We decided to align the Commission’s condonation policy with that of the SSS, he added.

Under the recently approved resolution, the ECC shall impose a six percent interest per annum for contributions not paid to the Social Security System (SSS) and the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS).

ECC said the resolution shall take effect immediately after its publication in a national newspaper.

In the same briefing, Batino said that the ECC released last year  P248 million to 24,693 employees who got infected with COVID in the workplace.

Batino said that as of Sept 2022, the ECC has distributed cash assistance worth P1.9 billion to workers who suffered from work-related sicknesses and accidents.  Most of the beneficiaries are employees from the private sector.