MANILA - The Social Security System (SSS) has paid funeral benefits to nearly all families that were affected by the fire that razed a factory in Valenzuela last month.
SSS said 67 of the 74 families of the victims received employees' compensation (EC) funeral benefits. Nine families have also received Social Security (SS) funeral benefits.
EC funeral benefits granted to work-related deaths amount to P20,000.
Another P20,000 in SS burial benefits are currently being processed for the beneficiaries of the victims.
SSS said that to date, only seven EC funeral benefit claims are left for processing as some relatives of the deceased members still could not be found and others have yet to contact the government agency.
SSS said of the 74 victims of the fire, 33 had no records with the agency. To facilitate processing of claims, SSS had to assign SSS numbers and dates of coverages for each of these deceased workers.
“We visited the families of the victims so that we could immediately determine the rightful beneficiaries. We used the master list provided by the local government unit of Valenzuela City to locate the families of the victims,” said SSS senior vice president Jose Bautista of the NCR Operations Group.
The master list served as the death certificate of the 74 victims. The list includes the name, address, name of spouse or relatives of deceased member.
SSS earlier said it will do away with the usual documents needed in processing funeral claims to make the payment of funeral and death benefits easier for the victims of the Kentex fire.