Crash victim’s kin to get aid

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz. FILE PHOTO

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

“Financial assistance will be given to the legal beneficiaries of Gumpal,” said Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz in a statement.

The OWWA will facilitate the release of her death benefit in the amount of P200,000, burial assistance of P20,000, and educational benefits for dependents.

The OWWA will also provide repatriation assistance, specifically in the release of her remains on arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport,” Baldoz said.

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

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration said Gumpal also worked as a caregiver in Israel in 2003.

Labor Attaché Leonida Romulo of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Toronto said Gumpal was with her lawyer-employer and his wife on board a small plane on March 17 when it   crashed in a remote heavily wooded area near the mouth of the Pickerel and French Rivers in Sudbury, Ontario.