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Bacolod City, PhilippinesWednesday, April 4, 2012
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Pag-Ibig Fund sues 15 firms
for unremitted contributions

CEBU CITY – The Home Development Mutual Fund, more popularly known as the Pag-Ibig Fund, has filed criminal cases against 15 employers who refused to remit some P20 million in workers’ contributions.

Pag-Ibig said that the employers owed the agency about P20 million in premiums, which their workers need to avail themselves of housing and other types of loans.

Lawyer Lovella Albina, HDMF legal counsel, pointed out that Pag-Ibig coverage is mandatory under Republic Act 9679. He said the filing of charges should be a wake-up call for delinquent employers.

She did not name the delinquent companies but said that of the 15 cases, seven were already elevated to the court, while eight were pending with the Mandaue City Prosecutor’s Office.

Two of the companies charged were a furniture firm and a shellcraft exporter. Albina said six more employers would be named in similar cases this week and nine employers after the Holy Week.

Delinquent employers who are found guilty of violating the law will be fined twice the amount of their uncollected or unremitted contributions, or face six years in jail. A court may also enforce both penalties.

Under the law, all employers are mandated to collect and remit to Pag-Ibig Fund the employees’ contributions plus the employers’ counterpart. Employees, who make less than P1,500 a month must contribute one percent, with an employer’s counterpart of two percent.

Those who earn more than P1,500 monthly must pay two percent of their monthly rate as their share, with an equivalent amount from their employer. Ma. Salve Ceniza, Pag-Ibig chief of marketing and enforcement division, said delinquent employers can be cleared of criminal liability if they avail themselves of the penalty condonation from Jan. 2 to June 30, 2012.

However, Ceniza said the penalty condonation covered only unregistered and delinquent employers who did not collect membership contributions.

Excluded from the coverage are employers who collected membership contributions but failed to remit, and employers