X. Rights to Benefits: Ignorance or Oversight?

Occupational Disease: Cancer of the Philippine Business Sector

Among the most common occupational diseases, work-related musculoskeletal diseases consistently grab the top spot since 2003. It is noticeable that the number of occupational diseases also increased by 34.29% from the 2007 data – 47,235 to 71894 cases.  Environmental factors, although not necessarily occupational factors, affect the continual rise in cases, but other external factors, such as lifestyle and genetic, are to be considered. Nonetheless, the data signifies clearly that there is heightened problem in occupational diseases in general that demands full attention from the concerned government agencies, employers and employees.

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In the most-recent survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) under DOLE, the most common occupational injuries in non-agricultural establishments are superficial injuries and open wounds with an average incidence rate of 50.8%. It took more than half of the cases of occupational injuries recorded in the Philippines, a significantly wide gap ahead of the second most common case which is dislocations, sprains and strains, collectively, at a lower percentage of 12.7%.

As the term implies, these superficial injuries tend to be overlooked by employees due to relatively non-serious effects to the health, also tendered with minimal to no medical attention at all. Thus, there is absolutely high chance of overlooking rights against these work-related injuries.

Condoned right is a condoned action and solution by the employer and employee alike. Big or small, serious or superficial, every case of occupational injury should be handled appropriately and in accordance to existing laws protecting the labor force. It can be deduced that non-serious injuries do not elicit much attention from concerned workers, enough to command legal benefits as identified by the ECC.

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Notwithstanding the obvious decrease in number of work-related injuries since 2003, the significantly high number of cases still infers lack of impressive occupational health and safety management systems in the country.

Many employers may have been doing their homework towards improvement of recorded incidence, but do employees actively do their part in bringing these cases to the attention of the authorities?