MANILA, Philippines – Workers affected by the enhanced community quarantine due to the COVID-19 outbreak should immediately receive a P10,000 cash assistance instead of releasing their 13th month pay earlier, party-list group Bayan Muna proposed on Tuesday.
Rep. Carlos Zarate said in a statement that these policies would make the community quarantine less difficult to workers, especially those living along poverty lines.
“As it is we are asking the national government to immediately give at least P10,000 for workers who are affected by the lockdown,” Zarate explained.
“The proposal to release the 13th month pay for workers is unfair for them because […] the economic package to help them should not come from them as well but from the company or the government. Hirap na nga sila gugulangan pa!” he added.
Zarate also said that higher hazard pay should be given to frontline workers including health workers, journalists, sanitation personnel and food supply staffers as they are at higher risk.
“Furthermore, hazard pay or double salary should be given to frontline responders to COVID-19 cases as well as journalists covering the cases, garbage collectors who are now doing daily collections and other jobs needed to keep NCR clean and sanitized,” he asked.
“Also the additional P1,000 pension increase for Social Security System (SSS) should now be given because the elderly are the most susceptible to CoVid-19. The social pension should also immediately be increased by at least P500,” he added.
President Rodrigo Duterte placed the entire Luzon on an enhanced community quarantine on Monday night, days after his previous pronouncement on Friday placing Metro Manila under the same circumstances.
Currently, a total of 187 patients in the Philippines tested positive for COVID-19, while 12 have died from the disease. Another six patients were allowed to go on a home quarantine, while four have recovered from the ailment.
In social media, netizens have aired the sentiments and concerns of workers who rely on daily wages — like public utility vehicle drivers and other low income earners — as they would not be allowed to work.
Other people working for frontline services meanwhile have complained of a lack of public transportation, being forced to walk for kilometers just to reach their destination.
“There should still be public transport at least for tricycles and jeeps even just for a time window per day so that those exempted can still go to work or those going to the market or drugstore can get there without walking for miles,” Zarate said.
“We strongly urge the Duterte administration to heed these suggestions because it is only through these that people would stay home and we can help in effectively combating COVID-19,” he added.
The COVID-19 is a respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus that first emerged in China’s city of Wuhan in Hubei province in late 2019.
The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses named the novel coronavirus as SARS-CoV-2.
Coronavirus is a family of viruses, which surfaces have a crown-like appearance. The viruses are named for the spikes on their surfaces.