Pag-Ibig offers reprieve to delinquent employers
Bacolod City -- The Pag-IBIG Fund is offering a reprieve for employers who failed to register his covered employees with the Fund or failed to remit the required monthly Pag-IBIG contributions of his employees for justifiable reasons.
Wilfredo Semolava, Pag-IBIG Fund Bacolod Branch officer-in charge, said that under the Penalty Condonation Program provided by R.A. 8501, all penalties imposed against delinquent employers, which includes an imprisonment of not more than six years, will be condoned after registration by the delinquent employer of all his coverable employees and remittance of the required contributions retroactive as of date of coverage.
If the employer is financially incapable of remitting the required contributions in full, the employer may submit a schedule of payment of how to settle the unremitted contributions which should not be longer than two years to be approved by the Fund management, Semolava added.
More than 3,000 business establishments in Bacolod City and Negros Occidental have remained unregistered with Pag-IBIG while about 200 employers have been delinquent in their remittance of the contributions mandated by law.
Semolava said Pag-IBIG is intensifying the enforcement of the mandatory remittance if monthly contributions in order to provide its members with adequate housing through an effective savings scheme. Aside from its housing loan program, pag-IBIG also offers provident/savings benefits to members, including overseas workers and immigrants, housing bonds, multi purpose loan and calamity loan among others.
Under the condonation program, the effectivity of the membership of an employee registered by the delinquent employer shall be retroactive to the determined date of the employer’s coverage, unless said employee has been previously registered by his employer in which case, the effectivity of his membership in the Fund shall remain the same and unaffected, he added.
He further said that the full payment by the employer of the required contributions or approval of the schedule of payment submitted by the delinquent employer shall result in the withdrawal of a complaint filed by the Fund against said delinquent employer before the Prosecutor’s Office or the dismissal of the case and provisional dismissal of the case filed for approved schedule of payment in the event an information has already been filed before the courts.
Employers as well as workers who are interested to avail of the condonation program may inquire at the Pag-IBIG Bacolod Branch Marketing and Enforcement Division at telephone numbers 433-4637 and 435-1601 to 03.
(Pag-IBIG/PIA/EAD)