Duterte approves wage subsidy for middle-income workers
President Rodrigo Duterte has approved the proposed wage subsidy programme for private sector employees affected by the community quarantine, Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said.
Nograles said the Small Business Relief Programme would help some 1.6m small businesses and their 3.4mn employees.
Under the programme, eligible workers would be given a cash aid of P5,000 to P8,000 to be computed based on the minimum daily wage rates in their respective regions. For small businesses’ workers, the cash aid will be distributed in two tranches — from May 1 to 15, and from May 16 to 30.
“‘This is the programme for middle-income wage earners approved by the president,” Nograles said.
Employees of small businesses registered with the Bureau of Internal Revenue and Social Security System will be given priority, he said.
Small businesses that stopped operations because of the coronavirus lockdown or were forced to apply a skeletal workforce were the most eligible for the financial assistance.
Employees of medium and large enterprises are not covered by the subsidy programme, Nograles said.
“Our point here is that we don’t want workers to lose their jobs. We want to retain the employment status of the employee,” he added.
Duterte earlier ordered the economic team to look at the possibility of including the middle class in the government’s cash subsidy programme.
This was in response to the appeal of Cavite Gov. Juanito Victor “Jonvic” Remulla to help middle-income families.
The governor said while these families rent homes in subdivisions, they still live through their monthly paychecks and were “barely surviving.”