Bill giving discount for health workers get lawmakers’ nod

MEMBERS of the House Committee on Ways and Means approved on Monday a substitute bill proposing a 20-percent discount for barangay health workers (BHWS).

Committee Chairman Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda said the discount sought is higher than the original proposal of the House Committee on Local Government granting a 10-percent discount and a value-added tax (VAT) exemption to health workers; but only for their medical needs.

The bill approved by the committee gives discounts other than for spending for health. Salceda said the bill seeks giving discounts to health workers for public transport fares, spending for hotels and restaurants, theaters and cinemas and burial and death care expenses.

“This is a wider provision with more benefits, without disturbing the integrity of the VAT system,” the lawmaker said. Salceda noted that members of the House Committee on Local Government concurred with the amendments.

The tax-discount proposal is included in the proposed “Magna Carta for BHWS,” which was approved by the committee Salceda chairs.

The lawmaker said that the provision “honors the social obligation that we owe BHWS, most of whom were not compensated for the risks they took during the pandemic and who were not included in the ‘Bayanihan to Recover as One Act.’”

According to the lawmaker, Administrative Order 36, which implemented the Special Risk Allowance to health-care workers, only provided benefits “to BHWS assigned to hospitals, laboratories, or medical and quarantine facilities.” Salceda said AO 36 explicitly excluded BHWS “who are not assigned to hospitals, laboratories, or medical and quarantine facilities.”

“The AO was extremely limiting. It’s not like the BHWS were not at risk when they were just doing contact-tracing work or serving those who were quarantined at home. That was not our intention in Congress, and we have to correct it somehow,” the gentleman representing the 2nd District of Albay said.