CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga – Human Resources Development (HRD) of Korea asked the assistance of Governor Dennis ‘Delta’ Pineda to help Kapampangan workers under the Employment Permit System (EPS) get their unclaimed insurances in Korea.
This came after HRD Korea Director Yun Jiwon visited Governor Delta to personally ask his assistance in tracing the whereabouts of at least 100 Kapampangans among the 2,000 worker returnees in the Philippines who failed to claim their insurances.
According to the Korean Labor Law, all workers under EPS are entitled to receive insurances, namely the Departure Expenses Insurance and Emigration Expiry Insurance. The former is the accumulated departured expense paid by the worker while the latter is the accumulated severance allowances paid by the employer.
Chanel Wilson, HRD staff, said, “Pampanga has the biggest identified number of worker returnees in the country who have failed to claim their insurances.”
“We would like to ask for assistance because we have already prepared the workers’ name, the letters for them and the address but we are not sure if they are still living here and if the address is still current and active,” she added.
Moreover, Wilson said that the minimum amount of insurance that a worker returnee could claim is 400,000 won. While the highest amount is 5 million won and their equivalence depends on the exchange rate.
“To properly assess, may be in the beginning of the year, we tried to call everybody on our list, not only the ones from Pampanga, but we didn’t get any answer. We also tried to email them with the registered email, but there’s still none. And we tried to match their names on Facebook and there’s still none,” she said.
The HRD of Korea prepared an envelope that will be distributed to the workers and it contains the information about the insurances, the forms that they need to sign and the company’s address.
For his part, Governor Delta assured to give his full assistance to the HRD in finding the Kapampangan worker returnees and help them in filling up the application form through the PESO once they successfully contacted them.
“Give me the list and I will ask the mayors and barangay captains to check these persons in their respective municipality,” the governor said.
The HRD of Korea guaranteed that claiming of insurances would be easy and if the returnee worker is already deceased, the immediate family member could still claim their insurance money.