ECC to penalize erring employers

MANILA, Philippines — Employers who fail to report sickness, injury or death of their workers on time can no longer escape penalties, the Employees’ Compensation Commission (ECC) said yesterday.

The ECC said it has come up with a new logbook template to facilitate the imposition of penalties for employers who fail to record sickness, injury or death among workers within the prescribed period.

According to the ECC, the new employees’ compensation logbook template shall cover the recording of sickness, injury or death of employees occurring from the time a new resolution on the logbook took effect earlier this year.

The template requires employers to provide the date of notification and date of logbook entry to facilitate the proper imposition of penalties.

Employers are required to keep a logbook to record chronologically all work-related sickness, injury or death of employees within five days from occurrence.

Those who fail to record in the logbook or gave false information shall be liable for 50 percent of the lump sum equivalent of the income benefit to which the employee is entitled.

The Social Security System imposes a penalty on employers who submit logbook entries with no dates of entry despite due requests from the SSS.

Upon request by the SSS, the employer shall submit the necessary certificate regarding the information about any contingency appearing in the logbook, citing the entry number, page and date.

The ECC clarified that the mere absence of the date of entry or the date of notification in the logbook shall not result in the suspension of the evaluation of the employee compensation claim.

“In the event that a claim for disability or death is declared work-related, the amount of benefit shall be awarded in full,” the ECC said.