Duterte Gives DOH 10 Days To Pay Frontliners’ Missing Benefits
DUTERTE GIVES DOH 10 DAYS – Following mass resignations from health workers, President Rodrigo Duterte gave the Department of Health and the Department of Budget and Management 10 days to release their benefits.
Currently, the DOH and the DBM has faced issue after issue after the Commission on Audit released their annual reports. As a response to the “deficiencies” regarding the DOH’s COVID-19 budget, health secretary Francisco Duque III pointed fingers at private hospitals.
He said that those institutions should be the one’s held accountable for the delays in releasing health workers’ benefits from their hazard pay. But, health workers’ groups stressed that they never received any form of benefits from the DOH.
According to Jao Clunia, president of the St. Luke’s Medical Center Employees Association, despite Duque’s claims during media interviews, they have not received even a single peso of benefits.
This led to several frontliners having mass resignations in protest of the DOH’s broken promises. Meanwhile, to address this issue, Duterte told Duque:
Use whatever money there is, bayaran mo iyong hinihingi ng mga nurses (pay what the nurses are asking for), both in government and those outside of government na volunteers.
Furthermore, Duterte said that if the health department doesn’t have any money, they should just use everything that they have. However, the President did acknowledge that the funds should go through the DBM.
“Hindi ikaw ang magkuha d’yan sa bulsa mo para ibayad mo, correct? I would like now itong naghawak ng pera or authority to spend, DBM, I’m giving you 10 days”
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