Housing board condones penalty on erring employers

Private companies or employers have a chance to come clean and settle their obligations with the state-run Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-Ibig).

The Pag-Ibig board has approved to condone the penalty due on the unpaid contribution, said Vice President Noli de Castro, also chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.

The program covers employers who are unregistered with the Fund, those whose applications for waiver from Fund coverage were denied, and those that are duly registered with the Fund but did not collect employee contributions and did not remit employer counterpart.

Jaime Fabiaña, chief executive, said “eligible employers must file their applications for penalty condonation before Dec. 31, 2009. Applications shall be evaluated based on the following grounds: financial difficulty to meet the company’s statutory obligation under Presidential Decree 1752 as amended; failure of concerned official to register the covered employees and/or remit the required contributions pursuant to PD 1752 as amended, and such failure has not been brought to the knowledge of higher management; coverage under PD 1752 as amended has been unsuccessfully contested in court; and other grounds/reasons acceptable to the Pag-IBIG Fund.”

Fabiaña said these employers will be required to remit to the Fund, all unpaid employer contributions from the time their current employees should have been covered by Pag-IBIG, up to the point of approval of their application for penalty condonation. They shall also be required to collect and remit to the Fund employee and employer contributions due for the current remittance period. –Manila Standard Today