Filipino troops donate wages to help fight COVID-19 outbreak
Filipino troops have gone beyond the call of duty and agreed to give up a portion of their pay to help the country’s efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID19) outbreak.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) announced the gesture on Wednesday, a day after President Rodrigo Duterte approved an extension to a total lockdown on Luzon — the country’s main island housing the capital Manila — until April 30.
“In commiserating with our countrymen who were unfortunate to contract the disease (COVID-19), and as a manifestation of full support to government, each regular member of the AFP — from the highest-ranking general to the lowest-ranking personnel — will donate an amount based from a certain percentage deduction from their respective base pays for May,” said AFP chief, Gen. Felimon Santos Jr.
The amount to be deducted from salaries will be equitable according to rank. Santos will make the most significant contribution of 10,484 Philippine pesos ($207), while the lowest-ranking soldier, a private, along with airmen and apprentice seamen will donate 100 pesos.
AFP spokesperson, Marine Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo, said that the AFP leadership had “heard the commander-in-chief ’s candid admission in a televised address to the nation (on Monday night) that the government will not have sufficient funds to deal completely with the massive impacts of COVID-19.”
Since the soldiers’ salaries for April are already out for payment, the donation — deductible from their base pay for May — will be available by the third week of April. The amount expected to be raised is around 16,953,490 pesos, with the AFP chief expected to hand over the donations to the Office of Civil Defense to procure medical supplies and other equipment. “With this amount drawn from our individual base pays for a month, we hope to help augment scarce government resources. Through this humble gesture of the AFP’s solidarity and unwavering support to the government it is sworn to protect and defend, we aim to share the burden in the nation’s fight against this contagion,” Santos said.
HIGHLIGHT Gesture aimed at ‘sharing nation’s burden’ in tackling pandemic: Armed forces chief.