Duterte ‘angry’ over lack of aid to health frontliners

MANILA: President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte, described by his spokesman as “angry” and “frustrated,” on Thursday ordered government agencies to pay within six days compensation mandated by a special law to the country’s frontline health workers who died or were stricken ill in the war to prevent the rapid spread of the novel coronavirus ( COVID-19).

“The president is mad and frustrated,” Secretary Harry Roque told a media briefing.

“This is the first time I’ve seen the president get hot-headed.”

Roque did not say which government agency or agencies had obtained Duterte’s ire when he gave them a six-day deadline until Tuesday to give the compensation to the health workers under the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act which gave the president special powers to cope with the COVID-19 virus.

Under the law, the families of each of the 32 health workers who succumbed to the virus are to receive a maximum of $20,000 in compensation while those stricken seriously were to receive $2,000 each.

But Senate President Vicente Sotto blamed the Department of Health headed by the embattled Francisco Duque, for the failure to distribute the compensation as he pointed out in an online media briefing: “This is definitely unacceptable.”

Nevertheless, it was administration Senator Sonny Angara, himself a COVID-19 victim, who revealed the health department officials’ failure to provide the compensation, citing as their “excuse” the lack of the implementing rules and regulations (IRR).

“It’s really criminal, this neglect to pass this and to delay these types of benefits. We keep praising them as our heroes and yet it’s more lip service if we don’t give them compensation,” Angara pointed out.

On Wednesday, Sotto said Duque should not use the lack of IRR to justify the inaction to provide compensation to the frontliners who died from the virus and those who fell ill and hospitalised.

“The efforts and sacrifices made by our healthcare workers need not be more emphasised,” Sotto told Duque in a letter.