Family of OFW in Canada who died in plane crash to receive OWWA benefits

MANILA — The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) will extend financial support to the legal beneficiaries of Overseas Filipino Worker Vilma Mamuri Gumpal who died in a plane crash in Sadbury, Ontario, Canada.

Labor and Employment Secretary Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz extended her sympathy to the bereaved family of Vilma. She assured them of prompt support from the government, since Vilma enrolled as OWWA member through the ‘Balik-Manggagawa’ program.

“Financial assistance will be given to the beneficiaries of OFW Gumpal. DOLE- OWWA will facilitate the release of her death benefit in the sum of P200, 000.00, burial assistance amounting to P20,000, as well as educational benefits to listed dependents. OWWA will also provide repatriation assistance, specifically in the release of her remains upon arrival at the NAIA,” Baldoz said.

Baldoz added that as a rule, all registered OWWA members are entitled to OWWA services that range from health care, disability and death benefits, scholarships and financial assistance for education and training, workers assistance and on-site services, and social services and family welfare assistance.

The application and processing of the benefits due Gumpal’s beneficiaries will be done at the concerned DOLE OWWA Regional Office, according to OWWA Repatriation and Assistance Division head Yolanda Peñaranda.

Gumpal, 42, single, is from Echague, Isabela, and has worked as caregiver in Canada since June 2012, according to OWWA records.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration likewise informed that OFW Gumpal also worked as caregiver in Israel in August 2003.

Baldoz said that Labor Attaché Leonida V. Romulo of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) in Toronto informed her that Gumpal was accompanying her lawyer employer and wife aboard a small plane on March 17, 2015. The aircraft crashed in a remote, heavily wooded area near the mouth of the Pickerel and French Rivers in Sadbury, Ontario.