Duterte to Duque: Pay front-liners in 10 days
President Duterte has ordered Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to pay within 10 days the special risk allowance (SRA) due front-line health workers under the already-expired Bayanihan to Recover as One Act, or Republic Act No. 11494.
“I am now ordering—this is an order—Secretary Duque, pay them,” the President said in a prerecorded address aired on Saturday. “Use whatever money there is. Pay what the nurses both in government and those outside of government, the volunteers, are asking for.”
Mr. Duterte also ordered the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to raise funds for the purpose, hours after the agency’s officer in charge, Tina Rose Marie Canda, told members of the House of Representatives that the money allocated in RA 11494 had already been returned to the national treasury.
RA 11494, speedily enacted into law on Sept. 15, 2020, earmarked P13.5 billion for healthcare workers’ benefits and allowances, but the law expired on June 30 with P6.4 billion still undistributed.
Still, the President insisted on supporting Duque even if it results in the former’s ouster.
“You want me to fire him? Give me a reason why I should,” he said, despite the Commission on Audit’s (COA) findings of irregularity in the management of the Department of Health (DOH) and its projects.
‘I will stand for Duque’
“Even if I am alone in this, I will stand for Duque even if it will bring me down,” he said. “I just want to do my job well and whatever judgment you have for me, I don’t give a shit.”
Both houses of Congress have initiated inquiries into the DOH’s handling of the government’s pandemic response.
The House grilled the DBM on the use of funds meant to help the country recover as one.
In the Senate, senators remained doubtful of Duque’s ability to manage the health department during a pandemic with Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri heaping criticism on the DOH’s “inefficiency,” which, he said, led to the current problems of the country’s health system.
Zubiri said Malacañang should consider handing over the distribution of health workers’ benefits to the Department of Labor and Employment instead of the DOH.
“The level of exasperation that we reached this week was really infuriating. I had to speak out against [the] DOH because of their failure to distribute the special risk allowance [when] the funds were available. [The] DBM said it had distributed P9.02 billion since June,” he said.
Still unpaid allowances
Zubiri mocked the claim of Duque that the distribution of the SRA had been completed, while blaming the DOH bureau heads at the same time for unpaid allowances.
“Many health workers have not received [their SRA], including about 80 percent of workers in private hospitals. So we are asking [the] DOH to submit the names of the recipients, and this should be executed under oath,” he said.
While Sen. Richard Gordon, chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee, welcomed the President’s order for the payment of health workers’ legally mandated benefits, he said, “We will not stop until the other issues concerning our health workers are resolved.”